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Wll.l.lA^ PRNN R>'A\AN. 



THE EARLY SETTLEMENT 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, 



Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, 



William Penn Ryman, Esq., 

Member of the Luzerne Countj' Bar. 




Read before the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society 

December ii, 1885 and February 11, 1886, 

and Reprinted from Volume VI of its Proceedings and Collections. 



VVILKES-HARRE, PA, 
1901. 






Ii'< 



JJ/4'7f| 



THE EARLY SETTLEMENT OF DALLAS 
TOWNSHIP, PA., 

BY 

William Penn Ryman, Esq., 

WITH 

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR, 

BY 

Wesley E. Woodruff, 
Historiographer. 



William Penn Ryman, one of the most prominent citi- 
zens of Wilkes-Barre, and a leading lawyer of the Luzerne 
Bar, passed into his final rest at his home on South Franklin 
street, July 31, 1899, just as the shades of evening had 
closed around the brightness of one of nature's loveliest days. 
Mr. Ryman had not been a well man for years, for he had 
recovered from a former desperate illness only by force of 
will and by extreme care in his routine of life. In this way 
he was spared to those whom he loved, and who loved him, 
and for useful endeavor, until some months ago, when he 
again failed in health. Such was his strength of resolution, 
however, that he kept up, until exhausted nature made it 
impossible to do so longer. Even as he felt the shadows 
deepening he never lost his courage, his serenity or his 
cheerfulness of spirit, and he still had the pleasant greeting 
and the smile of a cordial spirit until a merciful oblivion 
closed his eyes. For several hours before the end he was 
not conscious, and the end was peaceful and beautiful — like 
a child falling into slumber at the closing of the day. 

William Penn Ryman was born in Dallas August 23, 



4 WILLIAM P. RYMAN. 

1847. He was the son of Abram and Jemima {Kunkle) 
Ryman, whose family was of German extraction, and settled 
originally in New Jersey, though three generations were 
born on the old homestead farm at Dallas. William P. 
attended the schools of Wilkes-Barre and then prepared for 
college at Wyoming Seminary. He entered Cornell Uni- 
versity as a sophomore at the first opening of that institu- 
tion, and completed the usual four years' course in three 
years. He was graduated in the class of 1871. He then 
took the two years' course at Harvard Law School, com- 
pleting it in one year, and afterwards came to Wilkes-Barre, 
being admitted to the Luzerne bar from the office of the late 
Edward P. Darling September 20, 1873, and to the United 
States Court 1882. He continued the practice of law from 
that time. In 1892, at the building of the Wilkes-Barre 
and Eastern Railroad, he accepted the presidency of the 
corporation and held that position until the merging of the 
road with the Erie. He still retained official connection, 
however, as counsel for the road. 

He organized the Algonquin Coal Company, 1893, was 
its president from the time of its inception until his death, 
and was one of the largest stockholders. 

He was elected a member of the Wyoming Historical and 
Geological Society January 7, 1881, and became a Life 
Member February 12, 1897. 

Mr. Ryman was a man of the most studious habits, and 
the atmosphere of the scholar was always about him. His 
law library was a particularly fine one, and his private library 
was one of singular richness, excellence and variety. He 
was beloved by everybody who knew him, and close ac- 



WILLIAM P. RYMAN. 5 

quaintance invariably added to the esteem and the affection 
in which he. was held. As a citizen, he was a man who 
considered duty above all else, and his sense of duty was 
clarified by an appreciation of the privileges and the obliga- 
tions of the individual, as they stand related to government 
and to authority. As a professional man, his acquirements 
were of the highest type — moulded in a thorough knowl- 
edge of the law, and framed in honor and unimpeachable 
integrity. He was a man also of broadest culture, of an 
innate and a developed refinement. He was always a reader, 
and his researches extended to history, to science and to the 
languages. Art and music were his relaxations, and he was 
a connoisseur in the highest realms of culture. In short, 
whether in professional or merely personal attainments, he 
was a man of the type of which communities boast, and a 
man whom any city might well be proud to call her own. In 
the home, in the associations that make life perfectly round- 
ed and beautiful, he was esteemed and beloved as few are. 
These associations from which the beauty and the fragrance 
of life exhale are not for the public ear, nor for the analysis of 
a public chronicle. A heart of the most generous impulses 
was his ; a heart of the tenderest sympathy and of sincerest 
yielding to duty. The community is poorer because of this 
loss, and the business world has lost one of its brightest 
ornaments. All who knew him will breathe a sigh of the 
sincerest regret at this summons of death, and, indeed, the 
expressions that have already come to those bereaved have 
been many and have been from the heart. 



The following extended and valuable history of Dallas 
township, Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, was originally 
prepared by Mr. Ryman as a brief paper for the Wyoming 
Historical and Geological Society, and was read before the 
Society, by request, December ii, 1885. It was so full of 
interest that it was at once referred to the publishing com- 
mittee, and Mr. Ryman was unanimously requested to pre- 
pare a second paper on the same subject. This latter paper 
was also read before the Society at the annual meeting Feb- 
ruary II, 1886. At his own suggestion, that a much larger 
amount of data was still unrecorded about the township, 
both papers were returned to the author for enrichment. 
This task was with him a labor of love, taken up during his 
leisure hours, and the last touches were added after the 
disease which ended his useful life had fully developed. 
Even in his last days he still hoped to have strength to add 
a chapter on the part played by Dallas township in the late 
Civil War. But the pen fell from the weak hands, and this 
chapter remains unwritten. h. e. h.** 




ABUA/H R> .>\AN. 



THE EARLY SETTLEMENT OF DALLAS 
TOWNSHIP, PA. 



READ BEFORE THE WYOMING HISTORICAL AND GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
DECEMBER II, 1885, AND FEBRUARY II, 1886. 



Up to the present time, local historians have found so 
much of interest connected with the settlement and growth 
of Wyoming Valley that they have neglected to note many 
important events in the rise and progress of the country 
surrounding. There is, no doubt, a vast deal of interesting 
historic material connected with every township in the pres- 
ent county of Luzerne, which, years ago, could and should 
have been recorded and given permanent place in its annals, 
but which, from long neglect, is now either lost forever, or 
so poorly and inaccurately handed down to us as to be 
comparatively valueless. In some parts of the county the 
work of collecting this material has been too long delayed 
to make it possible now to get anything like an accurate 
account of men and events from the date of the first settle- 
ment. The men who knew of their own knowledge, who 
lived and had experiences in the earliest days, are gone, 
leaving us only the children or grandchildren to relate what 
was told them by their ancestors. This kind of hearsay 
and tradition lets in an element of uncertainty which should 
not exist in any historic record. 

With the view and purpose of writing down what I can 
learn, at this late day, concerning the "over the mountain" 
or hill country west of Wyoming Valley, and especially of 
the present township and borough of Dallas, I began in the 
year 1885 to make some effort to collect these materials 
and data from every source known to me, from examination 
of records, from conversation and correspondence with those 



8 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA, 

whose memory runs farthest back and is clearest, from mon- 
uments, maps, deeds, &c., and have, in the following pages, 
recorded, as best I can, the result. I have endeavored to 
collect abundant proofs and the best evidence to be had 
before putting down any statement herein as fact. For the 
reasons given above, I have not been able to entirely ex- 
clude hearsay evidence or tradition ; but whenever relied 
upon it has been fortified by the testimony of more than 
one witness on the same point. 

The township of Dallas originally embraced all the ter- 
ritory of Luzerne county northwest of the present boundary 
lines of Kingston, Plymouth and Jackson townships, ex- 
tending to the present SuUivan, then Lycoming county line. 
It included all of the township of Monroe and parts of 
Forkston, North Branch, Northmoreland and Eaton town- 
ships, in present Wyoming county. All of Lake and Leh- 
man townships and parts of Ross, Union and Franklin 
townships in present Luzerne county. Dallas township 
originally joined to Kingston township as it now does on 
the line of the southeasterly side of certified Bedford town- 
ship. The northern portion of present Dallas township is 
drained by Leonard's Creek which passes through the vil- 
lage of Kunkle to Bowman's Creek and with that into the 
Susquehanna river near Tunkhannock. The southern and 
larger portion of present Dallas township, including nearly, 
if not quite all, of certified Bedford, is drained by Toby's 
Creek, which passes, by an easy grade, through a cut or 
gap in the mountains to Wyoming Valley at a point near 
the center of greatest population and activity. This is 
noted as an important fact, because the first immigrations to 
a country always follow the streams. This opening through 
the mountains made the country about the head waters of 
Toby's Creek very accessible to those living near its outlet. 
As soon as the settlements in the valley increased so that 
neighbors lived near enough to see each other, there were 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 9 

some restless souls who felt crowded and began to seek 
homes farther back into the woods. The soil in the valley 
was sandy and not very rich. The trees that grew upon it 
were scrubby and small, while upon the higher lands about 
Dallas the soil seemed stronger and was covered with a 
heavy forest of very large trees. Some who first settled in 
the valley reasoned from this that the soil about Dallas, 
which could raise such very large trees, must be richer and 
better for farming purposes than the soil of the valley, and 
they sold their farms in the valley and moved back. Of 
course the anthracite coal of the valley was not known of 
or considered then. 

THE EARLIEST SETTLERS AND THEIR IMPROVEMENTS. 

The difficulties of settling Dallas township were very 
great. It was comparatively an easy thing to cut a path 
or road along the banks of Toby's Creek and find a way 
even to its source, but to settle there alone, many miles 
from any clearing, and meet the wolves, bears and other 
wild animals, which were terrible realities in those early 
days, saying nothing of the still pending dread of the prowl- 
ing Indian, was a very serious undertaking. 

When a young boy I heard Mr. Charles Harris, then an 
old man, tell some of his early recollections, which ran back 
to about the time of the battle and massacre of Wyoming. 
He told us of the Indians who once came into the house 
where he and his mother were alone and demanded food. 
There being nothing better they roasted a pumpkin before 
the fire and scraped it off and ate it as fast as it became soft 
with cooking. He also told us about his father's first set- 
tling on the westerly side of Kingston mountain at what is 
still known as the "Harris Settlement" about two miles 
north of Trucksville. He said that his father worked all 
the first day felling trees and building a cabin. Night came 
on before the cabin could be enclosed. With the darkness 



10 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

came a pack of wolves, and, to protect his family, Mr. Har- 
ris built a fire and sat up all night to keep it burning. 
The wolves were dazed and would not come near a fire, 
and when daylight came they disappeared. To pass one 
night under such circumstances required bravery, but to 
stay, build a house, clear a farm and raise a family with such 
terrors constantly menacing exhibited a courage that com- 
mands our highest esteem. 

The time had arrived, however, for the settlement and 
clearing up of that "back of the mountain" country, and 
there were volunteers ready and anxious to do it. Of those 
volunteers I have been able to get the names of a very few 
and to learn where some of them lived. They settled alone 
and lived alone, leaving almost no evidence except a thread 
of tradition as to how they lived. 

Among those earliest settlers in that vast wilderness 
about Dallas were John Kelley, John Wort, Elam Spencer, 
Ephriam McCoy, William Trucks, John Leonard, Thomas 
Case, the Baldwin family and the Fuller family. There were 
many others who came after the beginning of the present 
century, but most, if not all, of the above named, had set- 
tled in that region before the year 1800. 

John Kelley and John Wort were revolutionary soldiers 
and settled near each other in present Dallas (then Kings- 
ton) township. They were, in my opinion, the first who 
settled and built homes within the present township of Dal- 
las, probably earlier than McCoy or Leonard (Mr. Pearce 
in his Annals of Luzerne County gives McCoy as the 
builder of the first house in Dallas), as both names appear 
in the assessment books of Kingston township for the year 
1796, while McCoy's name does not appear there (until 
several years later) probably for reasons hereafter explained. 

John Wort then (1796) had fifty acres of land, three of 
which were already cleared, while John Kelley had a like 
number of acres in all, of which six acres were then cleared. 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. I I 

Wort then had one horse and two cattle while Kelley was 
credited with owning no horses but four cattle. John 
Wort's settlement was on the southerly side of the present 
road leading from Dallas borough to Orange post office or 
Pincherville, in Franklin township. The old log house in 
which he afterwards lived was still standing a few years ago 
nearly opposite where Leonard Oakley then lived, about 
half a mile southwest of late residence of Sanford Moore, 
now deceased. John Kelley lived on the same side of the 
same road about three-quarters of a mile nearer Orange post 
office on the lot in the warrantee name of John Eaton. In 
the early days of this century the "Kelley clearing," as John 
Kelley's improvement was called, was a somewhat noted 
spot, and is found frequently mentioned in the early road 
views, descriptions in deeds, &c., in that part of the country. 
People went there from miles around to cut hay from his 
low marsh land, where grass grew abundantly before it had 
yet been started on the newly cleared land of the neighbor- 
hood. Among other things most difficult to get at that 
time was hay for horses and cattle. The first clearings, I 
am told, were all used and needed to raise a sufficient sup- 
ply of grain and other food for the families, and a long time 
elapsed before enough land was cleared so that farmers 
could spare a part of it to stand in grass or hay. The first 
hay crops were, as a rule, exhausted long before the new 
grass could be had, and one of the methods of piecing out 
the horse feed was to send the boys in early spring to 
gather the ferns that would push themselves up from the 
ground and begin to unroll almost before the snow was 
gone. Another expedient was to cut evergreen trees and 
brush of different kinds and drag them into the barn yard 
for the cattle and sheep to feed upon. 

John Leonard settled and made a clearing at the lower 
or southeastern end of part two of lot one and part one of 
lot two of certified Bedford (then Kingston and now Dallas) 



12 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

township, near the new stone county bridge across Toby's 
Creek, almost exactly at the point where the northernmost 
and the middle branches of Toby's Creek come together 
near the easternmost corner of Dallas borough, now called 
Leonard's Station on the Wilkes-Barre and Harvey's Lake 
Railroad. The clearing made by him still remains sur- 
rounded by almost unbroken woods as he left it. A few 
.stones from the tumble down chimney of his house and a 
few apple trees standing near mark the spot where his house 
stood, near the eastern end of the clearing. It has always 
been and is still known as Leonard's Clearing or Leonard's 
Meadows. He bought this land, 150 acres, of a relative, 
Jeremiah Coleman of Plymouth, in the year 1795, and prob- 
ably settled there soon after. In the deed for the land 
Leonard is named as a resident of Plymouth township. In 
1796 he was assessed in Plymouth township as the owner 
of 45 acres of land, a log house and four cows. He does 
not appear to have been assessed in Plymouth township 
after 1796. The assessment books for Kingston township 
for the next seven years cannot now be found ; but in the 
year 1804 we find him assessed in Kingston township with 
18 acres of cleared land (about the amount of the present 
clearing) and the 145 acres of unimproved land, one house and 
four cows. He was regularly assessed thereafter in Kings- 
ton township for the same property until 1807, when all 
trace of him disappears. He was a shingle-maker, and the 
spot where his clearing was made is said to have been an 
old halting place for the Indians, who used to travel up to 
Harvey's Lake and across the country that way. 

Joseph Shaver, of Dallas borough, informed me that his 
father, John P. Shaver, who afterwards bought and settled 
near the Leonard clearing, used to tell of the trials he had 
when a boy, about the year 1802, in driving a team from 
Wilkes-Barre up Toby's Creek to John Leonard's clearing 
to get a load of shingles. There were no roads, only a road- 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 1 3 

way cut through the woods from the valley along Toby's 
Creek to where Trucksville now is, and from there over the 
hills somewhat as the main road now runs, to a point near 
the maple tree by the present road on the present line be- 
tween Kingston and Dallas townships, near the cross roads 
and late residence of James Shaver, deceased. From there 
he said there was a path down to Leonard's house. There 
were no bridges then, and the difficulties of the trip were 
greatly increased by his being obliged frequently to cross 
and re-cross the creek and part of the way to drive in the 
bed of the creek, both going and returning. 

In the woods a few rods south of the Leonard clearing there 
is still standing a carefully dug and walled up cellar in the 
center of which stands a tall pine tree. I have been unable 
to find anyone who could give me any information as to 
who built this cellar. It may have been the commencement 
of a house for John Leonard, Jr., who appeared about the 
year 1806 as a single freeman, but who disappears with 
John Leonard, Sr., in 1807, after which date the records of 
this county show no further trace of either of them. 

Charles Car Scadden (or Skadden), of Plymouth, bought 
a lot next to Leonard's from same grantor in the same year, 
but, as far as I can learn, never lived on it. 

Rev, William Case, of Kingston borough, tells me that 
Leonard was related to his family and to the Skadden fam- 
ily — all formerly of Plymouth — through marriage, and that, 
in his opinion, this same John Leonard moved to Ohio and 
settled near Cleveland about the year 18 10. This fact, and 
the vague uncertainty about it and about the exact name, 
no doubt gave rise, a few years since, to an effort on the 
part of a portion of the Case and Skadden families at Ply- 
mouth to establish relationship with the great philanthropist 
and millionaire, Leonard Case, who died at Cleveland, Ohio, 
in the winter of 1879 and 1880, leaving, as it was by some 
supposed, no nearer heirs. 



14 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

Elam Spencer, a Connecticut Yankee, bought the balance 
of lot one of certified Bedford — 168 acres — of Jeremiah Cole- 
man in the year 1800, and is said to have moved into the 
house with John Leonard and to have lived there while 
erecting a domicil for himself on the upper end of the tract, 
near where his son, Deming Spencer, afterwards lived and 
died. While Elam's family was living in the Leonard 
House, this son Deming Spencer was born, in the year 1800. 
(This is given as an old tradition about Dallas, although 
the tombstone of Deming Spencer gives the date of his 
death 1873, age 76 years.) He is said to have been the 
first white child born within the territory of present Dallas 
township. 

Ephraim McCoy settled, made a small clearing, and built 
a house in the year 1797 on the lower side of the present 
road, about half way between Raub's hotel in Dallas bor- 
ough and the "Corner School House," near present resi- 
dence of William Goss. This house, like all the houses of 
that region at that time, was built of logs, and was but little 
better than a hunter's cabin. McCoy was the original 
grantee from the state of the northwest quarter of lot two 
of certified Bedford township. He was a Revolutionary 
soldier, and was lame from a wound received in battle. He 
was unable to do much work and drew a pension. He 
cleared a small spot when he first settled there, but in later 
years worked but little, spending much of his time fishing 
at Harvey's Lake. When he first settled in Dallas, Har- 
vey's Lake was a famous fishing and hunting resort. Mc- 
Coy said it was still visited by Indians and that he fre- 
quently saw them passing by a trail through the woods 
where Dallas village now stands, to and from the lake. 

Abram Honeywell informs me that he remembers McCoy 
well, and says than when McCoy died the nearest burying 
ground was at Huntsville, and there being no drivable roads 
yet opened between Dallas and Huntsville, McCoy's body 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 15 

was carried by the pall bearers about two miles to the Hunts- 
ville burying groud for interment. I give this incident as 
it was related to me by Mr. Honeywell, but it is proper to 
state that McCoy sold his Dallas lands in 1817, and is noted 
in the first assessment book of the newly organized Dallas 
township (18 1 8) as having "removed," and his name does 
not appear thereafter as a taxpayer of Dallas township. 
This may be the date of his death. He left no kin and but 
little can be learned of him. There is no tombstone to mark 
his grave at Huntsville. 

William Trucks, a Connecticut Yankee, in 1801 bought 
of Daniel Barney, of Wilkes-Barre, the Connecticut title to 
lot three "of certified Bedford with a warrant against all 
persons claiming the same by any title derived from, by or 
under the state of Connecticut or the Susquehanna Com- 
pany." WiUiam Trucks, Jr., aftewards completed the title 
by securing a patent from the Commonwealth of Pennsyl- 
vania. It is on this lot three of certified Bedford that nearly 
all of the present village and much of the borough of Dallas 
now stands. William Trucks, however, though a pioneer, did 
not go so far into the wilderness from the settlements of 
Wyoming Valley. He did not venture beyond the banks 
of Toby's Creek at the present village of Trucksville, which 
took its name in his honor. 

As early as 1796 he was a resident of Kingston township 
and the owner of 36 acres of "occupied" land and 208 acres 
of "unoccupied" land, one horse and two cattle, and was by 
occupation a carpenter and millright. In the year 1804 his 
holdings were 13 acres of improved land, 803 acres of unim- 
proved land and three cattle. In the year 1800 Benjamin 
Carpenter, Oliver Pettibone and William Trucks were ap- 
pointed as committee, "by the proprietors of Kingston, for 
the purpose of leasing the public lands in said town to 
William Trucks." Seventy acres were thus leased for a 
term of 999 years. The lease was dated 4th April, 1800. 



l6 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

In 1813 William Trucks, Jr., conveyed all of lot three of 
certified Bedford to Philip Shaver. 

In the year 1807 we find him, for the first time, assessed 
as owner of a grist mill and a saw mill. These mills were 
at Trucksville. The grist mill must have been built at 
an earlier date however, as we find it mentioned in a peti- 
tion for a road view as early as 1804. It was built of 
logs, two stories high, and stood on the same ground now 
occupied by the present steam grist mill in that village. 
It had but one pair of mill stones, and they were made 
from a large boulder of conglomerate rock, known as "flat 
iron rock," which used to stand by the road side opposite 
the old John Gore saw mill that formerly stood a quarter 
of a mile above the present toll gate of the Kingston and 
Dallas turnpike. These mill stones were cut out and set 
by Mr. Trucks himself. At this mill the grain was first run 
through the stones and ground. It was caught in bags 
below and carried up stairs again by hand where it was 
thrown into a hopper and shaken by hand through a coarse 
cloth and thus bolted. 

The saw mill was erected by Mr. Trucks about the same 
time, possibly a year or two later. It stood against the 
steep and rocky hillside, about four rods above the stone 
mill dam which now stands at the point where the Kings- 
ton and Dallas turnpike crosses Toby's Creek in the lower 
end of the village of Trucksville. Those mills and the 
William Trucks settlement at that point were very impor- 
tant improvements in the early part of this century. It was 
the first foothold of settlement and civilization on that side 
of Kingston mountain. William Trucks built substantially 
as if he intended to stay and develop the country. The 
house in which he lived was built of logs, hewn on four 
sides, and stood on the flat ground where the store building 
late occupied by J. P. Rice, Esq., and now by William Pat- 
terson, Esq., stands, about four or five rods below the 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 1/ 

present grist mill. This house had two rooms down stairs. 
The chimney was built in the center and had two fire places. 
It was warm and strong I have been told by those who re- 
membered it. 

In the year 1809 William Trucks was commissioned jus- 
tice of the peace by Governor Snyder, for Plymouth, Kings- 
ton and Exeter townships. In 181 1 he sold his mills to 
Joseph Sweatland who soon afterwards added a distillery to 
the grist mill. The same year William Trucks moved to 
Wayne township where he spent the balance of his days, 
leaving powers of attorney with his son William Trucks, 
Jr., and his friend Daniel Ayres of Plymouth, to dispose of 
the balance of his interests in Luzerne county, Pennsylvania. 

About 1 8 14 Jacob Rice purchased part of the Trucks im- 
provement from the Sweatland family and settled atTrucks- 
ville. The distillery was distasteful to Mr. Rice and soon 
disappeared. Mr. Rice came from Warren county, New 
Jersey, and was a local preacher of the Methodist faith. 
He was a man of great enterprise and industry. He made 
many improvements at Trucksville, and became one of the 
foremost and wealthiest citizens of his time in that vicinity. 
He erected a tannery, plaster mill and fulling mill, opened 
a store, and for many years conducted a large and prosper- 
ous business at that village. He built a handsome residence 
on the hill above the grist mill which is still standing, and 
which, at the time of its erection, was far in advance of any 
other house in that country. It was painted white and had 
green blinds on the windows, and when new was generally 
regarded as palatial for that place. Joseph Orr, father of 
Albert S. Orr, of Wilkes-Barre, was the builder. 

Another enterprise started at that point by Mr. Rice was 
a corn roaster intended for preparing roasted corn to send 
south for the negro slaves. Roasted corn was afterwards 
found to be injurious as a negro diet, and this enterprise 
failed. 



1 8 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

Almost contemporary with the William Trucks settle- 
ment, possibly a little earlier, was the settlement, at Hunts- 
ville, on the southwest fork of Toby's Creek, then in Ply- 
mouth township, afterwards just on the border Hne of Jack- 
son township and Dallas township, as originally laid out. 
The place took its name in honor of William Hunt who 
went there about the year 1800. One of the first stores at 
that place was kept by Mr. Hunt, and of him the story is told 
that he was once complaining, in a half bragging way, about 
the extravagance of his family in the use of sugar, and added, 
by way of justification of his complaint, that if they had 
their full swing he really believed they would consume 
forty pounds a year. Hunt was the original certified grantee 
of part of lot five in certified Bedford, part of which was by 
him sold to Peter Ryman in 1829, has since remained in the 
hands of his family and descendants, and constitutes a part 
of the Ryman homestead farm. 

The earliest settlers of Huntsville, however, were the 
Baldwins and Fullers. Jared Baldwin had already erected 
a saw mill there in 1796. Amos Baldwin and Jude Bald- 
win, "hatters" by trade, also had a half interest in a saw 
mill, possibly partners of Daniel Allen in another mill, at 
the same time. Jehiel Fuller is credited with having a still 
house in the same neighborhood in the same year. In the 
year 1799 Jared Baldwin still owned the mill while Amos 
and Jude Baldwin confined themselves to their trade as 
"hatters." The Fuller "distillery" is not mentioned again 
by the assessors, and possibly disappeared. The country 
was not enough cleared about there at that day to make a 
distillery at that point pay. About this time, 1799 or 
1800, Jared Baldwin and Amos Baldwin erected a grist mill 
near where the present grist mill in the village of Hunts- 
ville stands. In the year 1804 the active business portion 
of the Baldwin family in that settlement consisted of Jared 
Baldwin, the father, and Tibball Baldwin, Amza Baldwin, 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. I9 

Amos Baldwin and Jude Baldwin, sons. All were united, 
at that time, in the ownership of the grist mill and half of 
the saw mill at Huntsville. The following additional facts 
concerning the Baldwin family may be of interest, viz : 
Jared Baldwin came from Connecticut in 1795 and built 
the hat factory at Huntsville with the remnant of his means. 
He had been a quartermaster in the Connecticut hne of the 
Continental army, and quartermasters in that struggle put 
their fortunes into supplies and trusted the government to 
reimburse them, but the Continental script became worth- 
less. After building the hat factory and saw mill, which 
stood about six rods above the present county bridge at 
Huntsville, and a flouring mill which burned in 1809, on 
the opposite side of the stream from the present one, he re- 
turned to Connecticut where he died about 1817. His son 
Tibbals built a log house near the little old orchard back of 
Harvey Fuller's present dwelling and died there. Other of 
the sons removed to Pitcher, N. Y. Jude continued in 
business in Huntsville, but died of typhus or (typhoid) fever 
in 1 82 1, as did several of his family. There had been 
erected a dam to overflow the old marsh where the Wilkes- 
Barre Water Company's dam now is. This overflow killed 
a lot of standing timber and is said to have caused an epi- 
demic of fever of some very fatal kind. Ambrose, Lewis 
and Watson, sons of Jude went to Ohio in 1832. Burr fol- 
lowed in 1839, and died in Williams county in 1855. Mrs. 
Eleanor Brown, late of Lehman, was a daughter of Jude. 
Ambrose afterwards moved from Ohio to Ottawa, Kansas, 
where he was twenty years justice of the peace, and died a 
few years ago. [For these Baldwins, see Baldwin Family, 
343-369.] 

Joshua Fuller and Benajah Fuller were the owners of the 
other half of the saw mill. Next year, 1805-6, this saw mill 
was burned down. The same joint owners rebuilt it, how- 
ever, at once, and with it a distillery. These mills stood 



20 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

within, or very nearly within, the territory afterwards in- 
cluded in Dallas township at its formation in 1817. Mr. 
Pearce states, in his Annals of Luzerne County, that the 
first saw mill in Dallas township was built byjude Baldwin 
on a branch of Toby's Creek in the year 181 3. Jude Bald- 
win did build a mill at that date on Toby's Creek about one 
mile above Huntsville, but there is doubt about its being 
the first mill in Dallas township as originally laid out, 
though it may have been the first within the present terri- 
tory of Dallas township. Miner Fuller, afterwards, about 
1847, built another saw mill about half a mile farther above 
the Jude Baldwin mill on the same creek. Both of these 
mills have been torn down within the past twenty years, 
there being no longer any need for them. The Fullers and 
Baldwins were vigorous pioneers and natural mill builders. 
I cannot more appropriately conclude this subject than by 
quoting from some valuable letters regarding those early 
people, which Hon. Evart Bogardus, of North Monroeville, 
Ohio, in response to my earnest solicitations, did me the 
honor to write, dated April 7th, il 



* * * "Jude Baldwin was one of the early settlers. 
He had a large family. His sons were Burr, Abed, Lewis J., 
Watson and Ambrose. The last is still living somewhere 
in the west, as is also his youngest daughter, Mrs. Eleanor 
Brown, widow of the late Amos Brown, Jr. Abed and Burr 
carried on the mercantile business in Huntsville in my 
father's old store house. 

"The Fullers settled in Lehman and Plymouth (now Jack- 
son) townships in an early day. There were two brothers 
that settled near Huntsville, Benajah and Joshua. They 
built the first saw-mill and grist-mill "over the mountain" (as 
we were in the habit of calling it). They came from near 
Kent, Connecticut, and first purchased in Kingston, nearly 
opposite Colonel Dorrance's, and, if my memory is correct, 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 21 

sold to Mr. Sharp and purchased a large tract of wild land 
about Huntsville on the Jackson and Lehman sides. The 
saw-mill was situated just above the present bridge. When 
I lived in Huntsville a heavy freshet uncovered the old mud- 
sill — a hemlock log — that had been buried beneath the 
ground for fifty years, and it was as sound as the day it was 
first put in. The grist-mill was located just below where 
the present one is now standing. It had two run of stones, 
one of burr and one of pudding or conglomerate stones, 
such as is found on the Shawnee Mountain. The grist-mill 
was built some time after the saw-mill. There was a very 
good water privilege to supply these mills before the coun- 
try was settled and the forest was cleared away, but the 
advance of civilization has lessened the supply. Just above 
the saw-mill, at the mouth of a large marsh, through which 
the west branch of Toby's Creek runs, the hills coming near 
together left a narrow passage for the escape of the water. 
The beaver, with his cunning instinct, selected this outlet to 
erect a dam, which they did in a most substantial manner. 
When I first remember Huntsville the remains of this dam 
were visible. I should judge it was originally about four 
feet high, which would overflow some two or three hundred 
acres of land. But since the country has been cleared up 
the sudden and heavy freshets have washed away its last 
remains. 

"Benajah Fuller was a Revolutionary soldier and drew a 
pension, as did his widow. His wife, "Aunt Katy" {^lee 
Catherine Thompson) survived him eight years. They had 
three sons, William, Jeremiah and Isaac. Chester Fuller, 
son of William, now resides in Lehman — a prosperous 
farmer — living on the old homestead. Harvey Fuller, son 
of Jeremiah, is living at Huntsville. Both brothers had 
other children who went west. Truman Atherton married 
their daughter Clarrissa, with whom the old folks made 
their last earthly home. The sons of Isaac Fuller were five. 



22 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

One now resides, I think, in Bradford county, Pa. Two 
went west and two died. Benajah Fuller was an industrious 
and upright man, beloved and respected by all who knew 
him. His eldest daughter married William Trucks, the 
founder of Trucksville. Louise married Daniel Ruggles. 
Laura a Mr. Trundall, whose son James lives opposite my 
present dwelling house, and is one of our wealthiest and 
most respected citizens. 

"Joshua built near his brothers on the farm now owned 
by Dr. Rogers. He had three sons, Sylvanus, Stephen and 
Abram. The latter died when a young man. Sylvanus, 
or 'Uncle Vene,' as he was known, lived near Jude Bald- 
win. He was a thrifty farmer, and was always full of fun and 
good nature; one of the best-hearted men in the world, 
respected and beloved by all his neighbors. He removed 
to Loraine county, Ohio, about 1830 or 1835, and accumu- 
lated a handsome property. His son Abram, the only child 
left, is still living on the old homestead, a wealthy man. 
Stephen also moved farther west. I know but little of him 
since he left Pennsylvania. Joshua also had four daughters. 
One married the late Benjamin Reynolds ; one married 
Amos Brown ; another married Joseph Worthington, Jr. ; 
the fourth, Amzi, never married. She lived near Harvey's 
Lake, and died within a few years back. There was another 
brother, who settled in Northumberland, of whom I know 
but little." 

There were no other mills built on the northeastern fork 
of Toby's Creek above William Trucks' mills until about the 
year 18 15, when Philip Shaver built a saw-mill about half a 
mile below the point where Toby's Creek crosses the line 
between Dallas and Kingston townships, on the site where 
the old mill now stands near the residence of Lewis R. 
Shaver. (Now "Shavertown" station on W. B. & H. L. R. 
R.) On this mill Philip Shaver sawed the siding which are 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 23 

now (1886) in use on the old wagon bridge across the Sus- 
quehanna at Wilkes-Barre. [Replaced 1892-3 by new steel 
bridge.] They were furnished by Philip Shaver under a 
contract at ^5.00 per thousand feet, delivered at the bridge, 
and to be two-thirds panel. 

About the year 1818 another saw-mill was erected by 
Christian Rice (who came from near Greensburg, Warren 
county. New Jersey, about that time) a few rods below the 
point where the main road crosses Toby's Creek in the 
present village of Dallas. That mill was still standing up 
to about 1880. Another mill was erected along in the 
thirties by Jacob Frantz near the present Frantz school 
house, on the northernmost branch of the north fork of 
Toby's Creek. Still another mill was erected about the same 
time midway between the Frantz mill and the John Leon- 
ard clearing. This was known as the Weston mill. This 
branch of Toby's Creek was too small to afford any suffi- 
cient water power, and these mills had to be abandoned 
many years ago. 

About the year 1840 Abram and Richard Ryman built a 
saw-rnill on site of present steam saw-mill of Ryman & 
Shaver, about a half mile below Dallas village. In the year 
1852 a steam saw-mill was added, and these two were run 
together until about the year 1870, when both were torn 
down and a large steam mill was erected, occupying the 
ground of both the former mills. This new steam mill was 
burned about July or August, 1881, and the present mill 
was built in the same year. 

The foregoing comprise the saw- mills on Toby's Creek 
within the territory of Dallas township. Prior to 1890 there 
has never been a grist-mill within the territory of present 
Dallas township so far as I can learn. In that year a steam 
grist-mill was erected about lOO feet northeast of the site 
of the old Christian Rice saw-mill in the borough of Dallas 
by Gregory & Heitzman. 



24 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

At Kunkle post office, in the "Green Woods" country, on 
Leonard's Creek, a branch of Bowman's Creek, there were 
two or three other mills. About 1840 Levi Hoyt built a 
saw-mill there about a half mile below or north of the 
village of Kunkle. Wesley Kunkle afterwards, about 1841, 
erected a mill about one-fourth of a mile south of the village 
of Kunkle, towards Dallas village. Still later Wesley Kun- 
kle built another mill in the village of Kunkle which occu- 
pied the site of present (1886) steam saw-mill of A. Ryman 
& Sons. The steam power was put in by Abram Ryman 
in the year 1871. 

The Newbury mills at Monroe, in present Monroe town- 
ship, were erected at quite an early date. They were 
marked on the map accompanying the report of viewers 
opening road from Wilkes-Barre to Bradford county line, 
via Dallas and Monroe, in 1820. Hitchcock & Church built 
another mill at "Churchdale," near Kunkle, about 1840. 

Still another mill was built by Elijah Harris about 1840, 
near site of present mill of Richard Ryman, at point known 
as Ryman's pond. This mill was supplanted by a very large 
steam saw-mill erected by Richard Ryman about 1858. The 
latter burned a few years later, and in its place the present 
mill (1886), run by water power, was built. 

About 1834 Christopher Snyder built a distillery and ran 
it for a few years. It stood near the center of the north- 
western half of lot six certified Bedford, being the part cer- 
tified to Abel Wheeler and Sarah Seeley, near late residence 
of Edward Hunter. Apple whiskey made from distilled 
cider was the principal product of this and most of the 
other small distilleries of that day. Apples were then, as 
now, a bountiful crop in Dallas township. 

The settlements in Dallas township during the first dec- 
ade of this century were not numerous; but just after the 
close of the war of 1812, when the soldiers had returned 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 2 5 

and were seeking homes, a new impetus was given to the 
house-hunting and setthng about Dallas. 

Among those who came in the first decade was Joseph 
Worthington and wife — the latter a daughter of Jonathan 
Buckley. They came from Connecticut in the year 1806 
and settled near Harvey's Lake. His first house was built 
of logs, and stood about ten rods northwest from the late resi- 
dence of his son, late Henry Worthington, on the hill about 
a quarter of a mile from the eastern inlet to Harvey's Lake. 
When Mr. Worthington first moved into that country there 
was no road from Huntsville to Harvey's Lake except a 
bridle path. Mr. Worthington cut a way through and built 
a house when his nearest neighbor was miles away and no 
clearings in sight anywhere. Wolves were then very nu- 
merous and bold at night, and the only way Mr. Worthing- 
ton could protect his family from their assaults was for all 
to climb the ladder to the second floor and pull the ladder 
up after them. Mr. Worthington used to say that his life 
during those early days was most lonely and disheartening. 

Concerning Mr. Worthington and other early settlers in 
that vicinity, I cannot do better that to further quote from 
the valuable letters of Mr. Bogardus : 

"Joseph Worthington was one of the prominent men of 
Lehman. When he settled at Harvey's Lake it was a wild 
wilderness. The old homestead never departed from the 
family. He was twice married. His first wife was a Miss 
Buckley, by whom he had five sons and three daughters. 
Joseph L. built the house where James Myers now lives 
(1886). Eliphat located in Doylestown. Elijah was an 
editor of a Whig paper in Wilkes-Barre. Jonathan was a 
shoemaker and moved to Loraine county, Ohio, he died 
about a year ago (1885). Thomas moved to Sauk City, 
Wisconsin. Nancy married Isaac Fuller. Maria married 
and lived in Doylestown, Pa. Eliza married Asaph Pratt. 



26 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

Elijah married Caroline Pratt. Asaph and Elijah were 
courting each others sisters at the same time. The four 
lovers met at the lake one pleasant day and proposed a sail 
on the water. Thomas was also with them. They lashed 
two canoes together, putting boards across both for seats, 
and to hold them level. They were fortunately not far from 
shore when, by some mishap, the boats doubled in and let 
them all in the water. Elijah and Asaph could not swim, 
nor, of course, could Caroline. Thomas being a good 
swimmer was rescuing them as fast as he could. Eliza 
said to her lover, 'now you follow my direction and I will 
save you and myself.' After getting the promise she di- 
rected him to lay his hand on her shoulder and struck for 
shore. Had she not been a swimmer both would have 
drowned, as Thomas had all he could do to save the other 
two. Not one of the family ever brought disgrace on them- 
selves or their much respected father and mother. 

Mr. Worthington's second wife was Sally Perry, a very 
estimable lady, by whom he had one son, the late Henry 
Worthington." 

Of Jacob I. Bogardus, a conspicuous and for many years 
a leading citizen of Dallas (now Lehman) township, I glean 
the following from the letters of his son above quoted. 

He was born in the city of New York 1783, his father 
being a merchant in that city. He married the only daugh- 
ter of Jonathan O. Moseley, of East Haddam, Conn. He 
engaged for a time in the mercantile business at Katskill, 
N. Y., and not being successful, removed to Pennsylvania 
and settled in Bradford township, afterwards a part of Dal- 
las, and now of Lehman township. He settled there about 
about 18 1 2 in the midst of the forest. His nearest neigh- 
bor on the south was Thomas Case, two miles ; on the east, 
Amos Brown, three miles; on the north, John Whiteman, 
two and a half miles. There were no public roads to any 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 2/ 

of the neighbors. Mr. Bogardus and his wife were both well 
educated, and Mr. Bogardus wrote a large portion of the 
early deeds, mortgages and other papers needed in that time. 

He was appointed by the Governor Justice of the Peace 
soon after coming to Pennsylvania, which office he held until 
he resigned many years after. He was at one time the only 
Justice of the Peace within the present territory of Lehman, 
Dallas and Jackson townships. His decisions and opinions 
were considered by most people about there in those days 
as final ; but few of them were carried to higher courts, and 
of these but few were reversed. 

Abram S. Honeywell was the standing Constable. Es- 
quire Bogardus married most of the young people about 
there in those days. " I well remember," says the letter of 
Evart Bogardus, "the marriage of A. S. Honeywell. He 
and his bride came on horseback, followed by most of the 
young folks of Dallas. They had a jolly time and returned 
happy." 

"Uncle Peter Ryman," continues the letter, "and after- 
wards his son, Joseph Ryman, were the people's lawyers 
that practiced at this court. They would lay down the 
law to the court, sometimes rather crudely, but the court 
would listen to them respectfully, and when they got through, 
decide. Peter and Joseph were often engaged to represent 
opposite sides in the same law suit. Peter spoke with a de- 
cided German accent. He was also the owner of a copy of 
Purdon's Digest, and usually prepared his cases by study- 
ing this book, and recognized no other authority. On one 
occasion when they were thus opposing each other, Joseph 
stated a legal proposition which did not suit Peter very 
well. It was good law and good sense, as Peter seemed to 
feel, but some reply had to be made to break its force and 
leave some ground for him to stand on before his client. 
This Peter did with all the force at his command, by saying : 
' Yosep, dat may be good law, put you can't find it in Purton! 



28 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

"John Ryman, another son of Peter Ryman, had also a 
taste for the law. He went west at an early day and was, 
for twenty years, up to the time of his death in 1856, a con- 
spicuous and leading lawyer in the states of Indiana and 
Ohio, as the early volumes of the Supreme Court Reports 
will abundantly show. He was a man of great physical 
strength, and, as Smaton Holman recently remarked of him, 
'he had a courage equal to his strength, and probably never 
knew what fear was.' 

"Esquire Bogardus was a tall, athletic man. He had but 
few equals in strength, yet was good natured and never quar- 
relsome ; always full of fun. Militia training was a great in- 
stitution in those days. Once a year there was a general 
training day, when the brigade inspector was to inspect the 
arms of the patriots. They were all armed. Some with 
old muskets, broom-sticks, corn-stalks, canes, &c. Some 
time about 1820 general training was held at Shawnee. 
Esquire Bogardus was a private in (I think) Captain Oliver 
Davenport's Company, who for some reason, whether just 
or unjust, I cannot say, put Esquire Bogardus and some 
others from over the mountain under guard, which made 
them feel very indignant. While walking home they re- 
solved to raise a volunteer company which was to be called 
'The Dallas and Plymouth Rifle Company.' Esquire Bo- 
gardus was elected captain. I have not a distinct recollec- 
tion as to the other officers. I think Joseph Worthington 
and William Fuller were lieutenants. It was said to be the 
finest looking company in the regiment and the best drilled. 
Almost every man stood full six feet high. The uniform 
was green round-about coats, trimmed with gold lace and 
round brass buttons. A high white feather tipped with red. 
Otis Allen, a tall, muscular man was the 'file leader.' 
When the company wished to pass over a fence Uncle Otis 
would get down on all fours and the company would use 
him as a step to vault over the fence. A few evolutions 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA, 2g 

would bring him to the head again. Many a time have I 
looked on these evolutions with pride while getting outside 
of a 'fippenny-bit's worth of gingerbread. 

"About 1825 Col. Jonathan O. Moseley left East Haddam 
and settled in Lehman on the same place with my father. 
He built the first frame house in either Dallas or Lehman, 
which is still standing on the old homestead. It was the 
marvel of the times, high walls, lathed, plastered and papered. 
The furniture was of a costly kind, being of solid mahogany 
with two good sized pier-glasses. This furniture was hauled 
by wagons from New York. 

"Col. Moseley was a graduate of Yale College under 
presidency of Theodore Dwight. He represented the dis- 
trict in which he lived, Middlesex county. Conn., sixteen 
years continuously in Congress. He was a poHshed gentle- 
man, as his education and surroundings gave him every op- 
portunity to be. He was a good lawyer, but he labored 
under the mistaken idea that it would be degrading to return 
to his practice. Col. Moseley and my father built and 
started the first store back of the mountain at Huntsville. 
That was their mistake. The goods had to be carted from 
Philadelphia by wagon. The country was new, money very 
scarce, and consequently a good deal of credit was given, 
and when accounts were due the pay was not forthcoming. 
After three or four years the money that had not been spent 
on the farm was in the hands of the dear people and re- 
verses followed. Garrick Mallery, Esq., bid in the farm 
and permitted Col. Moseley to occupy it until he removed 
to Michigan in 1839, Mr. Mallery being a good friend to 
Col. Moseley. 

"The writer remembers seeing deer in flocks in the woods, 
wolves howling at night, bears come and drink from 
the spring brook. Our first near neighbor was William 
Newman who married Peggy Lee. He sold to 'Governor' 
Sitese, who got the title of Governor in rather an amusing 



30 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

way. Joseph Worthington who was the only resident at 
Harvey's Lake was expecting the Governor of Pennsylva- 
nia to call on him on a certain day. In the morning, as he 
went out on his farm to work, he told his daughter Eliza, 
a mischievous young lady, that when the Governor came 
she should call him and he would come in the back door 
and change his farm clothes for his store clothes. The call 
came, and, after Mr. Worthington had attended to his toilet, 
he went into the room only to meet Cornelius Sites. What 
added to the amusement of the daughter was that Mr. Sites 
was a tall, raw-boned, uneducated man, and exceedingly 
homely. The title of "Governor" never departed from him. 
"Governor" Sites was, however, a clever man and good 
neighbor. 

" Our nearest school house was a log house situate two 
miles distant on the road leading to Harvey's Lake through 
a dense woods. The first post office established back of 
the mountain was at Huntsville. It was named in honor of 
William Hunt, an old resident of the place. Truman Ath- 
erton was the first postmaster. He was appointed under 
John Quincy Adams' administration. He held the office 
until about 1849 when he resigned, and Major Abed Baldwin 
was appointed as his successor. Truman Atherton occupied 
quite a prominent place in the respect of his neighbors, 
holding, frequently, two or three township offices at the 
time, and represented his county two years in the legisla- 
ture of Pennsylvania. 

"Oliver McKeel bought a farm adjoining ours. His wife, 
nee Charity Pringle, is still living (1886) on the old home- 
stead now owned by their son Lewis McKeel. 

"John Linskill came from England and settled near what 
is called the Linskill school-house, in Lehman, about 1830; 
purchased his farm of Russel T. Green, and married for his 
second wife Polly Steel. His first wife was a sister to 
Thomas Major, Sr. Mr. Linskill worked at his trade 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 3 I 

(tailoring) in a shop near his house. He was an honest, in- 
dustrious man, very quick in his movements and decisions ; 
of strong religious faith, rather intolerant towards those who 
differed from him. I remember very well when they were 
building the Christian Church at Huntsville he would not 
look at it, and I believe never went into it ; but he was a 
good neighbor and kind-hearted, and commanded the re- 
spect of the neighborhood. 

"Amos Brown was one of the first settlers of Lehman. 
He was living there when my father came to Pennsylvania 
in 1812. He had two sons, Jeremiah and Amos; three 
daughters, Rachel, Annis and Sybil. Jerry and Rachel 
never married, but always lived on the old homstead. Amos, 
Jr., married Eleanor, youngest daughter of Jude Baldwin. 
Annis died young. Sybil married William Major. Jerry 
was a jolly, good-hearted fellow, fond of young company. 
He passed through three generations as a young fellow ; or 
rather one among the young folks. 

"Jerry quoted 'Uncle Vere' very often. He would gen- 
erally finish a sentence with 'as Uncle Vere said.' A com- 
mon answer to a saluation as 'How are you, Jerry?' would 
be 'Forked end downwards.' Dr. Robinson, who married 
Polina Fuller, Uncle Vere's oldest daughter, Jerry's cousin, 
could never get over laughing about Jerry's 'forked end 
downwards.' 

"Elder Griffin Lewis was an early settler there. He lived 
in Jackson township near Huntsville. He was the only 
minister among us for many years. He was a large, stal- 
wart Vermonter — a man of unimpeachable honesty and 
integrity, an exemplary Christian. He was not noted for 
his eloquence, but for his solid, good sense, and among his 
neighbors a peacemaker. He married Hannah Rogers, 
sister of Dr. Rogers' father. Elder Joel Rogers. He has 
two sons, James and Jonah. The latter is now living at 
Battle Creek, Mich. James died a few years since in De- 



32 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

troit. Abed Baldwin married one of his daughters. One 
married Captain T. O. Bogardus; one married Palmer 
Brown (she is still living, 1886); the youngest married 
Thomas Worthington. 

"As you wish me to say something about myself, I will 
give a short outline of my life. I was the third son of Ja- 
cob I. Bogardus ; was born in Lehman (or Bedford as it 
then was) September 15th, 1813, five days after the battle 
of Lake Erie. At the age of fourteen I went to the city of 
New York, where my father apprenticed me to the saddle 
and harness trade. I remained in the city about five years, 
after which I returned to Lehman and helped work on the 
farm. The first office I ever held was constable. I had 
an execution in favor of Joseph Worthington against Mc- 
Carty (I forget his first name). [Probably Edward.] He 
turned out his only cow. Mrs. McCarty came out with 
tears in her eyes and said it was her only cow. I told her 
to keep her cow until I called for it. I laid the case before 
Mr. Worthington. He directed me not to sell it. I thought if 
that was the business of a constable, to be the instrument in 
the hands of the law to distress the poor, I had had enough 
of that glory. I resigned and John Linskill was appointed 
by the court as my successor. I shortly after left for Phil- 
adelphia and entered into the employ of J. M. Botton & 
Co. as shipping clerk in a forwarding and commission busi- 
ness. I remained with them three years. In the spring of 
1838 my father removed to Kalamazoo, Mich. I followed 
him in next December with a bright prospect of entering 
into the mercantile business, but was disappointed by false 
promises. In 1840 I returned to Pennsylvania, stopped at 
Williamsport, and through the kindness of a good friend, I 
obtained a situation as book-keeper for John B. Hall & Co. 
In November following I was married to Miss Louise, only 
daughter of Truman and Clarrissa Atherton. At the ear- 
nest solicitations of my wife's father I left Williamsport in 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 33 

the spring of 1841 and took charge of his farm. Remained 
on the farm seven years (as long as Jacob worked for his 
wife). My old friend G. M. Hollenback said to me several 
times, when I met him in Wilkes-Barre : 'Mr. Bogardus, it 
seems to me you could do better than work on a farm.' I 
thought perhaps he had something for me, so I would see 
what it was. I told him I though I could, and wished I 
could see an opening. Said I, 'Perhaps you have one.' He 
said he had, and invited me into his office. He then un- 
folded to me his plan, viz., to rent me his old warehouse, 
put me up a store at the canal basin (on the same ground 
where now stands the new L. V. R. R. depot in Wilkes- 
Barre). Had he thrown a pail of cold water on me I 
could not have received a more sudden chill, I could not 
see even a living in it, but he assured me there was money 
in it; and knowing him to be a good business man, I trust- 
ed in his judgment, which proved to be correct. The first 
year, by strict attention to business and by the help of my 
good wife, I found, at the close of navigation the following 
fall, I had accumulated ^1200 over and above my living and 
house rent, and had built up a paying business. I retailed 
in one year 15,000 bushels of oats. My prices for hay and 
oats, corn and chop governed the market. I introduced 
the first dray in Wilkes-Barre, drawn by a large bay horse 
weighing between 1700 and 1800 pounds. Joe Keller was 
drayman. My business was always prosperous, and my 
business relations with the people of Wilkes-Barre and 
the surrounding country were almost of the most pleasant 
kind, and it does me good when I visit my old home to re- 
ceive so many hearty greetings. 

"In 1855 I joined my father-in-law in building the grist- 
mill at Huntsville. After it was finished, we sold out our 
farms, both his and mine, in Jackson and Lehman, to Anson 
Atherton. I then sold out my store and good will to J. 
M. Hollenback, my house and lot to Robert Watt, and in 



34 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

the fall of 1856, in company with my father-in-law and 

brother-in-law, G Atherton, and our families, we left 

for the West, and located in Huron county, Ohio, my pres- 
ent home. We purchased a good farm and bought out the 
only merchant in our village, and did a prosperous business. 
I was always active in politics — a Democrat up to the 
breaking out of the Civil War in 186 1. I then united with 
the Union party. The only plank in their platform was to 
put down the Confederacy at any cost. The course pursued 
by the Democrats of Ohio I could not approve, and I be- 
came identified with the Republican party. I held the 
office of county commissioner six years, justice of the peace 
six years, and had the honor of representing Huron county 
four years in the Legislature of Ohio, and have been notary 
public for the last fifteen years, and hold that office still. In 
early youth I was baptised into the Church by Elder Griffin 
Lewis. I have tried to live a consistent Christian, never 
denying my religion. My hope in Christ is the comfort of 
my declining years — looking for the coming of my Saviour 
with joy, in the full faith of having a part in the resurrection 
at His appearing. 

"I could say much more about the Ides, Whitemans, 
Jacksons, Harrises, Husteds, Majors and many others of 
those early days, but I suppose you have had enough. * * 
"Your friend, E. Bogardus." 

Coming back again to the territory within the boundaries 
of present Dallas township, the Shaver family appears as an 
early, and, like the Honey wells, a numerous settler. The 
name was at first spelled Shaver or Shafer and Shaffer. 
Adam Shaver, Peter Shaver and Frederick Shaver were 
residents of Kingston township as early as 1796. Adam 
was a shoemaker by trade, but, in 1806, he started, and for 
several 3^ears, ran an oil mill at Mill Hollow, now Luzerne 
borough, at the place now (1886) occupied by Schooley's 




Joseph Shaver 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 35 

plaster and chop mill. Adam Shaffer was also certified 
grantee of the northwestern half of lot five in certified Brad- 
ford, now principally owned and occupied by John Fergu- 
son, Esq. The exact date when the Shavers first settled 
in Dallas cannot now be determined with certainty. They 
were Germans and most of them came direct from New 
Jersey, vicinity of Newton. 

About the year 1812-13, Philip Shaver and his sons John 
and William became the owners of large bodies of land in 
the southeasterly portion of what is now Dallas township 
and in adjacent portions of Kingston township. For a long 
time, and even to this day, the settlement is locally known 
as and called "Shavertown." Philip Shaver was a pro- 
gressive man. One of his earliest purchases was in 18 13, 
of the whole of lot three, certified Bedford, from William 
Trucks. The same year he sold a portion from the north- 
west half to Jonah McLellon, also a Jerseyman (from Knowl- 
ton township, Warren county). On that portion bought by 
McLellon the present village of Dallas, or McLellonsville, 
as it was originally named, was built. 

Philip Shaver was born and spent his boyhood in the 
valley of the Danube River, near Vienna, Austria. It was 
a cardinal principle with him that a man was not really run- 
ning in debt when he bought and owed for real estate at a 
reasonable price. He settled and built his home, a log 
house, on the hill about a quarter of a mile south of the cross 
roads near late residence of James Shaver, deceased, on the 
ground afterwards occupied and owned by Asa Shaver, 
now deceased. Philip Shaver was generous and public 
spirited to a marked degree for the time and place. He 
gave the land for the public burying-ground, on the hill 
near the pine grove just south of Dallas village, on the road 
to Huntsville. He also gave land for what is known as the 
Shaver burying-ground, which lies about a mile southeast of 
the former. The land upon which the first school-house 



36 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

in Dallas township was built was likewise a gift from him. 
This land lies partly in the cross-roads just south of and 
adjacent to the present public school building in Dallas 
borough. That school-house was erected in 18 16 of logs. 
It was standing yet within my recollection (about 1853 or 
1854). I remember attending a Sunday-school in it once. 
Mr. George Oliver was superintendent, and they sang 
"Happy Day," and it was the first time I had ever heard it. 
This school-house was also used for holding meetings and 
services of all kinds, divine and secular. Candles, in small 
tin candle-holders, turned over at the top to form reflectors, 
and hung on nails driven here and there, in window and 
door frames, furnished the only light at evening meetings. 
The candles were home-made dips contributed by the differ- 
ent persons who were in the habit of attending the evening 
meetings there. Evening meetings at that time were always 
announced to commence at "early candle light." The lux- 
ury of a clock was indulged in by but few, and of a watch 
by almost none, so that the surest way to get a congrega- 
tion together at a particular time after sundown was to fix 
the hour as above. I am told by a lady who attended meet- 
ings in that school-house when she was a girl, nearly fifty 
years ago, that a bonnet was seldom seen. The ladies wore 
handkerchiefs tied over their heads instead. 

The first or one of the first schools in that school-house 
was taught by one Doty, an Irishman. He was very strict 
and had a long list of rules, to break any one of which was 
sure to subject the offender to severe chastisement. No 
two pupils were allowed to go out or be out of doors at the 
same time during school hours ; and in order to avoid such 
an occurrence, a card was suspended on the door, on one side 
of which was printed in large letters the word "out" and on 
the reverse side the word "in." When anyone went out he 
must turn the card so that the first named word could be 
seen, and when he came in the card must be again turned 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 37 

SO that the second word could be seen. No coaxing or 
reasoning" would prevail to let anyone go out while the word 
"out" could be seen on that card. 

As previously remarked, the country about Dallas was 
very rapidly filled with settlers just after the close of the 
war of i8i2. It was regarded as the frontier country to 
those living farther east in New Jersey and Connecticut, as 
Ohio, Indiana and California soon after became in the minds 
of the people of this region. 

Aaron Duffee was one of the ex-soldier settlers. In 1813 
he appeared first in that country. He settled and built a 
house on the Amos Wickersham warrant, near and north- 
east of the point where the main road from Dallas to Kun- 
kle crosses Chestnut hill or Brace hill ridge. Though an 
Irishman by birth, Duffee was a most aggressive and un- 
compromising Methodist preacher. He preached about the 
neighborhood in private houses and barns, and later, after 
its erection, in the log school-house. 

That was an age of distilleries and liquor drinking. There 
were very few people then, in that region, who did not have 
whiskey in the house at all times. About the year 1823 
Peter Roushey, a tailor by trade, living near the road at the 
upper or northwest corner of lot number one of certified 
Bedford township, near late residence of Enoch Reily, un- 
dertook to sell liquor by the "smalle" or drink. There had 
probably been difficulty before, but this enraged Duffee, 
and he prosecuted Roushey. To beat him and get rid of 
him, Roushey took out a tavern license. This was in the 
year 1823, and was the first tavern Hcense taken out in Dal- 
las township. It was not renewed next year, and there was 
no other license taken out in that township until one was 
taken out by Jacob Meyers in 1837. Since 1837 a hotel 
has been continuously kept in Dallas. 

About 18 1 2-1 3 William Honeywell moved from New 
Jersey and bought and settled on a portion of the Edward 



38 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA, 

Duffield tract, near where the farm of his grandson, William 
J. Honeywell, now is, also part of the same land now occu- 
pied by the Dallas Union Agricultural Society for a fair 
ground and racing track. For much of the information 
that I have concerning that period I am indebted to Abram 
S. Honeywell, Esq., son of William Honeywell, who is still 
living (September 5, 1885) and very active at the age of 
ninety-five years. Mr, Honeywell's narrative in connection 
with his father's moving to Dallas is very interesting, and I 
give it in his own words as he gave it to me on the 19th 
day of September, 1885, at the house of his son, William J. 
Honeywell, in Dallas. 

" I have a very distinct recollection of many things that 
occurred about the time my father moved into this country 
(Dallas). I cannot give the year, exactly, that we came, 
but it was in the spring. My father had been out here the 
fall before and had bought a large body of land, part of lot 
one certified Bedford (this deed is dated 20th September, 
1813, and the deed for part of Edward Duffield tract is 
dated 3d November, 18 14, but the purchases may have been 
contracted for before either of those dates), and we moved 
in the next spring. We came from Nolton (Knowlton) 
township, near Greensburg, Warren county. New Jersey 
Many of the early settlers of Dallas came from there. The 
township of Dallas had not yet been cut off from Kingston 
and Plymouth townships, from which it was taken.* There 
were five families who came in from New Jersey when we 
did. Widow Sweazy and her son, Thomas Sweazy, about 
my age, were in the party. We drove our teams and wagons 
all the way. We first came down to Wilkes-Barre, and ex- 
pected to cross there and come up to Dallas, through the 
narrows and along Toby's Creek by the way of Trucksville, 
but the water was so high in the river that spring that we 

* The first petition for the new township was filed October sessions, 1814, and the 
court appointed Oliver Pettibone, Charles Chapman and Josiah Lewis viewers, but 
they never made any return or report of any kind to the court. 




WlI.lJAM J. HcjNIiN W Kl.l. 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 39 

could not get over, and we had to go back to Pittston to 
cross. After crossing at Pittston we came down to New 
Troy (Wyoming) and came up along the creek (Abraham's) 
that cuts through the mountain at that point, and on through 
the woods to the place where father had bought and in- 
tended to settle. There was no road at all, and we had to 
cut our way through woods the whole distance. It was a 
dreadful hard job, and it took us about five days to get 
through. We had brought our cows, sheep and hogs with 
us, and it was almost impossible to get them through the 
woods and across the streams. The water in the creeks 
was very high, and of course there were no bridges, so we 
had to ford them all and carry the sheep and hogs over. 
The forest was very dense and heavy, and everything 
looked most discouraging to us. My father's name was 
William Honeywell, and we settled almost exactly on the 
spot where stood the house lately occupied by Enoch Reily. 
It was on the upper end of lot one certified Bedford. There 
were only four or five houses within the territory of present 
Dallas township at that time. Ephraim McCoy lived there 
then on the lower side of the present road, about half way 
between the Goss or corner school-house and Raub's hotel. 
There was also a man by the name of Vanscoy living back 
of us somewhere, about where Ferdinand Ferrell lives. 
Elam and Daniel Spencer each had a little log house down 
along the creek in a direct line between our house and the 
present village of Dallas. When we arrived our house was 
not yet done. My father had hired a man the fall before 
to build it and have it ready by a certain time when we 
should arrive. We had to all turn in and help finish it. 
Just back of this house there was a small clearing when we 
went there and on it stood the ruins of a old log hut. This 
clearing was old, for the ground had been planted until it 
was quite run down. I don't know who cleared it or who 
ever lived there. 



40 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA, 

"The old Leonard Meadows or Leonard Clearing was 
then about as it is now, but John Leonard had moved away 
when we came. The original forest covering Dallas town- 
ship was very heavy. There was a growth of very large 
pine trees, many of them 150 to 200 feet high. There were 
also oak, maple, chestnut and hemlock in abundance. There 
were many other kinds of wood, but these predominated. 
There were no worked roads or bridges when we first went 
to Dallas. The best roads we had were simply the natural 
ground with the trees and brush cut so as to let a wagon 
through. The woods were full of game of all kinds — bears, 
deer, wild turkeys, &c. Wolves were very thick, too. 
There were no Indians in Dallas when we went there, but 
I have heard McCoy tell about seeing them, when he first 
moved in, as they went from the valley, through where Dal- 
las village now stands, to Harvey's Lake, on their hunting 
and fishing trips. Harvey's Lake was a grand place to 
hunt and fish then. You could kill a deer there almost 
any time. Many of the settlers who came in after we did 
moved away very soon because the country was so rough 
that they could not stand it. It was very hard for any of 
us to get a living then. There was no money a-going. 
The most important thing with us was to get our roads 
opened and fixed up so that people could get about through 
the country. We were often called by the supervisors of 
Kingston to work out our road tax on the roads in the 
valley, and we had to get down there by seven o'clock 
in the morning or have our time docked. To do this, we 
had to get up and eat breakfast before daylight even in the 
summer time, and they kept us at work until sundown, so 
that we had to go home in the dark also. It was very dis- 
couraging. We could not get supervisors to go over into 
the Dallas end of the township to work the roads, nor 
would they let us work our tax out there. At last we be- 
gan trying to get a new township. (This was first tried in 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA, 4 1 

1 8 14,) We had very hard work of that, too. The people 
in the valley fought us all they could, and we had to work 
three or four years before Dallas township was set off. 
Then we began harder than ever to lay out and open roads. 
Everyone was so poor, however, that we had almost no tax, 
and so we had to turn out and have working bees on the 
roads in order to make them even passable. Dallas town- 
ship filled up very fast after the separation. Most of the 
settlers were Jerseymen, though there were a few Connecti- 
cut Yankees among them. 

"Peter Ryman came in about 1814. He was from Greens- 
burg, Warren county. New Jersey. John Honeywell, my 
father's brother, came in the year before we did. Richard 
Honeywell, another brother, came in soon after we did. 
They all came from Warren county. New Jersey. My 
brothers were Joseph, Thomas and Isaac. I had one sis- 
ter, Elizabeth, who married Eleazor Swetland, brother of 
William Swetland of New Troy (Wyoming). John Orr 
came here about the time we did. He was a blacksmith, 
and used to sharpen plowshares. He would not shoe horses 
much. The only plow in use then was the old fashioned 
shovel plow. The only iron about it was the blade, which 
was about the shape of an ordinary round-pointed shovel. 
This was fastened to the lower end of an upright post. To 
the post was attached handles to hold it with, and a beam or 
tongue to which the team could be hitched. This plow was 
jabbed into the ground here and there between the roots, 
stumps and stones, and with it a little dirt could be torn up 
now and then. There was no patent plow in use then, nor 
could it be used there for many years after we settled in 
Dallas, Nor could we use a cradle for cutting grain. At 
that time the ground was so rough, and there were so many 
stumps and roots and stones, that we had to harvest at first 
with a sickle." 



42 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

As narrated by Mr. Honeywell, and as may yet be in- 
ferred from the great number of large pine stumps still seen 
in the fields and numerous stump fences about Dallas, there 
was at one time a species of very tall pine trees covering 
that country. A very few of them can still be seen (1886) 
towering far above the other highest trees in the woods 
below Dallas, near the Ryman and Shaver steam saw-mill, 
but they are the last of their race. For some reason they 
do not reproduce, and will soon be an extinct species. Many 
of them grew to a height of 175 to 200 feet, and often the 
trunk would be limbless for 150 feet from the ground, with 
a diameter of from five to six feet at the ground.* 

It is difficult to fell them without breaking them in one 
or two places. They are so heavy and have so few limbs 
to retard their fall, or to protect them in striking the ground, 
that they come down with a terrible crash, and any stone, 
stump, log or unevenness on the ground where they fall is 
sure to break them. 

Little benefit was ever derived by the people of Dallas 
from this now valuable timber. The most important con- 
sideration with the first settlers was how to clear away and 
get rid of the vast and impenetrable forest that covered the 
entire country. Saw-mills were built to make sufficient 
lumber to supply the wants of immediate neighbors. There 
was no great market for lumber anywhere, because all parts 
of the country had mills and lumber as abundant as it was 
in Dallas. Furthermore, there were no roads over which 
it could be conveyed, even if there had been a market, so 
most of it had to be cut down and burned on the ground. 

ROADS. 

Mr. Abram Honeywell tells me that when his father 
wanted a few slabs to cover the roof of his house in Dallas, 

* This statement, when originally read before the Historical Society, was questioned 
somewhat by Hon. Steuben Jenkins, who was then living and present. I have since 
had some of the trees measured, and find that my statement as to their height is correct. 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 43 

they had to carry and drag them from Baldwin's mill at 
Huntsville, about three miles, because the roads were so 
poor a wagon could not then be driven between Dallas and 
Huntsville. 

While on the subject of roads, a few dates may be noted 
when some of the earlier roads of that country were peti- 
tioned for, laid out or opened. 

At August sessions, 1804, the petition of Zacariah Harts- 
hoof and others was read asking for viewers to be appointed 
to lay out a road from James Landon's saw-mill, the nearest 
and best route to the bridge near William Truck's grist- 
mill, whereupon the court appointed viewers. No report 
was made, and nothing more seems to have been done with 
this petition. 

At January sessions, 1806, the petition of Samuel Allen 
and others was read praying for viewers to be appointed to 
lay out a road from Dallas and Baldwin's Mills (afterwards 
called Huntsville) to intersect the road that was laid out 
from Mehoopany to Wilkes-Barre (old state road, now en- 
tirely opened, superseded by road of 1820, hereinafter men- 
tioned), at or near William Truck's grist-mill. The said 
road to begin at or near Mr. Foster's. Whereupon the 
court appoint John Goss, Zacariah Hartzshoof, Philip Mey- 
ers, John Tuttle, Elijah Shoemaker and Elisha Atherton 
to view the ground proposed for said road, etc., etc. At 
November sessions, 1806, the viewers return a road as fol- 
lows, leading from Fuller & Baldwin's Mills (Huntsville) to 
William Truck's mill (Trucksville) : Beginning at a stake 
and stones near Mr. Foster's, which is the centre of the 
road ; from thence south, 63 degrees 75 perches to a stake 
in the Reynolds meadow ; from thence south, 40 degrees 
east, 92 perches to a stake ; thence north, 72 degrees east, 
128 perches to a stake; thence north, 54 degrees east, 56 
perches to where it intersects with road that leads from Me- 



44 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

hoopany to Wilkes-Barre, one mile and seventy-one perches 
long. This report was confirmed and the road opened. 

At January sessions, 1807, a road was ordered from "near 
where Cephas Cone formerly lived in Exeter by Alexander 
Lord's to intersect the road leading from Northumberland 
to Wilkes-Barre near John Kelley's." 

At November sessions, 18 19, a road was ordered in Dal- 
las, beginning at a large white pine tree near Jonah Mc- 
Clellon's (where Raub's hotel now stands), and on road 
leading from Jacob Rice's mill (formerly Truck's mill at 
Trucksville) to upper part of Dallas township via "John 
Orr's improvement," west, etc., etc., "to a road leading from 
Baldwin's Mills (Huntsville) to Harvey's Lake. The above 
road runs fifteen perches through improvement of Jonah 
McClellon's and thirty perches through an improvement of 
John Orr." (This is the present road from Dallas to Har- 
vey's Lake.) 

1820. Road was laid out "from pubhc road near line of 
William Honeywell" (corner east of Goss school-house), 
"northeast via corner by Conrad Kunkle's mill, etc., etc., to 
Northumberland." 

1 82 1, April sessions. Road laid out from near school- 
house near residence of Ezra Ide, southeast across Hunt- 
ington road via Jacob L Bogardus* improvement, also via cen- 
tre line of certified Bedford township, whole distance 716 
perches to line between lots 38 and 39, near house of Jacob 
L Bogardus. 

January 3d, 1821. Road is ordered from line of Bedford 
township to Harvey's Lake, on petition of Joseph L. Worth- 
ington and others, whole distance 380 perches. 

April sessions, 1822. Road opened from Bedford county 
line, via Dallas, to Wilkes-Barre, whole distance 31 miles 
307 perches. (This is the main road in present use from 
Wilkes-Barre, via Dallas, to Bowman's Creek.) 

November sessions, 1821. Road laid out from near Bald- 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA, 45 

win's mills (Huntsville) on line of road leading from Bald- 
win's Mills to Harvey's Lake, via Wyncoop's, Wheeler's 
and Whiteman's improvements, crossing Harvey's Creek 
and Pike's Creek, and through Flagler's, Wilkinson's and 
Long's improvements to an established road leading to 
Huntington. 

January sessions, 1822. Road laid out and opened in Dal- 
las from Philip Kunkle's, via line between John M. Little, 
Aaron Duffy and others to highway at or near Warren Da- 
vidson's. 

January sessions, 1823. Road laid out "beginning at 
public road near saw-mill of Christian Rice (McLellonsville, 
now Dallas, village); thence south, 10 degrees west, 60 
perches to a white oak at a school-house (old log school- 
house) ; thence south, 6 degrees west, 30 perches ; south, 
10 degrees west, 29 perches to house of Christian Rice; 
south, 32^ degrees west, through improvements of John 
Honeywell, 74 perches to corner ; south, 43^ degrees west, 
past Peter Ryman's barn 40 perches to William Hunt's 
line; thence south, 40 degrees west, 40 perches through an 
improvement of William Hunt and 46 perches more to a 
white pine sapling; south, 15 degrees west, 14 perches to 
a white oak ; south 64 perches to a pine; south, 14 degrees 
west, 17 perches to a corner; south, 20 degrees west, 40 
perches through improvement of Fayette Allen to public 
road; same course, 34 perches to white oak sapling; south, 
3 degrees west, across small run, 12 perches to a pine; 
south, 10 j4 degrees west, 74 perches to a road running from 
Fuller's mill (Huntsville) to Philip Shaver's mill (or Toby's 
Creek just below Dallas borough line); thence along said 
road south, 19 degrees west, 72 perches to the corner at 
McLoskey's store, near Fuller's mill (Huntsville). This is 
the present main road between Huntsville and Dallas. 

August 6th, 1827. Road opened from main road between 
Dallas and Trucksville, via old log school-house in Dallas, 



46 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

west, via Henry King's (now Robert Norton), Alexander 
Ferguson's (now John Ferguson), and A. Wheeler's (now 
) improvements, to road leading from Burr Bald- 
win's (Stroud's) house to Harvey's Lake. 

November 3d, 1828. Road laid out from near house of 
Peter B. Roushey (corner of Goss school-house) ; thence 
on centre line of Bedford township south, 44^ degrees 
west, 102 perches to road leading from Kingston to Har- 
vey's Lake, near house of Nathaniel Worden (M. E. Church). 

August sessions, 1828. Road laid out from Stephen 
Brace's (Brace Hill) south, 50 degrees east, through swamp, 
etc., to road leading from Kingston to Bowman's Creek. 
(This road reviewed 1837.) 

1 823-1 824. Road laid out from north side of Stephen 
Ide's cider-mill (near Ide burying-ground and Presbyterian 
Church in Lehman township), on road leading from Hunts- 
ville to Harvey's Lake, via Stephen Ide, Miner Fuller and 
Jonathan Husted improvements, to road leading from Ben 
Baldwin's (late Allen & Honeywell's) saw-mill to Amza B, 
Baldwin's ; thence via old road, Joseph Meyer's and Simeon 
Spencer's, to Joseph Orr's improvement. 

January sessions, 1844. Road laid out from house of 
Anthony Foss (near M. E. Church in Dallas borough), 
along center line of Bedford township, to "Baldwin's road" 
at or near house of Joseph Wright. 

It is very probable that some of the foregoing roads were 
opened and actually used for some time before they were 
legally declared to be public roads by decree of court. 
While on the other hand, some of them were not actually 
opened for public use for a considerable period after they 
were ordered by the court. It may be stated, also, that 
some of the earlier roads were opened and accepted as pub- 
lic roads by common consent without any action of the court 
ever being taken. 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 47 

SOME EARLY SETTLERS IN PRESENT VILLAGE OF DALLAS. 

Christian Rice settled in Dallas about the time the new 
township was set off from Kingston and Plymouth. He 
bought part of lot number four certified Bedford, and built 
on it near the graveyard on road between Dallas and Hunts- 
ville. This farm is now (1886) owned by his son, Jacob 
Rice, and lies within the present borough of Dallas. Both 
Christian Rice and his son Jacob Rice have been closely 
identified with the growth and progress of Dallas. While 
the present village of Dallas was not honored with having 
built in it the first house that was erected in Dallas town- 
ship, it became evident at a very early day that a village 
would be built there, largely due, perhaps, to the willing- 
ness of Jonah McLellon to sell lots of small size to anyone 
who wanted to buy and improve. 

The Ephraim Moss house stood in the field, on a little 
knoll just over the spring run, about twenty or thirty rods 
northwest of the present public school-house in Dallas bor- 
ough. There are a few pear trees or apple trees yet stand- 
ing (1886) near the spot. The ruins of the old chimney 
were still standing twenty or twenty-five years ago. Ephraim 
Moss was a shoemaker, I am told. 

Jonah McLellon's house stood on the spot where rear end 
or kitchen part of Raub's hotel now stands, and was proba- 
bly the first house built in the present village of Dallas. 
McLellon bought this land, as before stated, in the year 
18 13, and probably moved there and built soon after. He 
was an Irish Jerseyman. He came to Dallas from Knol- 
ton township, Warren county, N. J. He originally owned 
all the northwest end of lot number three certified Bedford 
down to a point 160 rods or one-half mile southeast of 
center line (middle of road by old M. E. Church), which 
included nearly all the land within the present village of 
Dallas. In 18 16 he sold twenty-five acres to Christian 



48 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

Rice, on which the latter built the saw-mill before referred 
to. The new Dallas Cemetery grounds were also included 
in that purchase. On this ground Christian Rice also built 
a log house, which, until a few years ago, stood on the 
northeasterly side of the street just across an alley and west 
of A. Ryman & Sons' store. One of the first to occupy it 
was his son, Jacob Rice. This house was torn down to 
make room for the house now occupied by Clinton Honey- 
well, which stands on the same spot where the log house 
stood up to about 1861-2. 

Patrick O'Malley, a son-in-law of Jonah McLellon, and 
a cooper by trade, built a log house and lived on westerly 
side of road leading to Harvey's Lake, nearly opposite 
Raub's hotel, about four hundred feet west of the Wilkes- 
Barre and Harvey's Lake Railroad depot. 

Another log house built in Dallas village, probably the 
third, was erected by Joseph Shonk, Esq., on the ground 
now occupied by "Odd Fellows' Hall." This house was 
built about 1819-20. Joseph Orr, afterwards, about the year 
1838, built a frame front to the house, the first frame build- 
ing in Dallas, and converted it into a hotel. It was the 
custom at that day to make a "frolic" or "bee" and invite all 
the neighbors to help whenever there was any extra work 
to be done, like the raising of a barn or other building, 
clearing of the logs and rubbish from new land, or the burn- 
ing of a "new ground," or removing the stones from a very 
stony field, or the husking of a big field of corn when the 
farmer was, from some cause, belated in his work. 

These "frolics" or "bees" were usually very well attended; 
by some from motives of neighborly kindness and charity, 
but by many, it is probable, because plenty of free whiskey 
and food were on such occasions to be had. They were 
often occasions of general debauching, and ended frequently 
with many trials of strength, or, worse still, with brutal 
fights among the young men. On the occasion of the rais- 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 49 

ing of the Orr Tavern there was a convivial crowd present, 
and much hilarity prevailed. The erection of the first frame 
house in Dallas, and that too for the purpose of a perma- 
nent hotel, was an event of sufficient importance to be 
marked in some way. There were then five houses in the 
village, and it was decided that this was sufficient to war- 
rant them in dignifying the settlement with a special name. 
That the christening might be properly solemnized, several 
young men from the crowd climbed part of the almost un- 
supported frame, and from the highest peak of the rafters 
one of them, standing erect, held up a bottle of whiskey, 
swung it around once or twice above his head, and then 
hurled it down, breaking it over the timbers, and named 
the place "AIcLellojisville'' in honor of Jonah McLellon, 
while from below came approving shouts, mingled with the 
firing of guns and pistols. By this name the place is still 
known, and by many it is still so called to this day, though 
through some oversight the postoffice and borough charter 
took the name of Dallas from the original name of the 
township, rather that the more proper one, McLellonsville. 

Like many men of his time in that vicinity, Jonah Mc- 
Lellon was very fond of whiskey, and frequently indulged 
his fondness. He had not always lived in perfect harmony 
with his wife Eunice, and I am told by several who person- 
ally knew of the facts, that, finally when Death called him, 
for hours before his final dissolution he lay in a semi-dele- 
rious state, his eyes partly closed, breathing long and heavy, 
and with each exhalation forced out a half articulate groan, 
''God d Eunice^' and so continued expelling this curse- 
laded breath, with gradually weakened force, through the 
long hours of nearly one whole night, stopping only when 
the last spark of life had left his body, and just as the first 
light of a new day was appearing in the east. 

Those who witnessed this scene pronounce it one of those 
weird events which brings on a cold chill when recalled. 



50 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

It is fair to the memory of Jonah to say that his wife, 
Eunice, was not generally regarded in the community as 
distinguished for womanly loveliness. On the contrary, 
she was believed to be a witch. Joseph Honeywell, when 
alive, was sure of it, and, as proof of his assertion, used to 
say that on one occasion when driving towards Dallas from 
the Trucksville grist-mill, he overtook Eunice, who was 
walking. She asked him to let her ride. He declined, for 
some reason, and she took offence. "Goon, then," she 
said, " I will get to Dallas yet before you do." She kept 
her word, "for," said Mr. Honeywell, "she witched my load 
of grist so that it would not stay in the wagon ; whenever 
I went up hill it would slide up hill and fall out of the front 
end of the wagon, and when I went down hill it would slide 
the other way and fall out behind, so that I had to keep 
putting the bags back into the wagon all the time and was 
hardly able to get home at all with my load." 

The son-in-law, Patrick O'Malley, was in some respects 
unique. He had been a soldier in the war of 1812, and 
was lame from a wound received in battle. Otherwise he 
was a man of powerful physique. It is by many remem- 
bered of him that he would any time bare his breast and 
let any man strike him with all his power for a drink of 
whiskey. The Irish reputation for a quick answer was also 
well preserved in him. He had a very peppery temper, 

withal, and on one occasion was pressing Mr. R , a 

well to~do neighbor, who was then keeping a store in Dal- 
las, for the payment of a small debt which he claimed the 
neighbor owed him. The claim was denied, and, of course, 
payment was refused. Some words followed, when suddenly 
O'Malley turned to go away, remarking as he went: "God 

Almighty has made you able to pay me, Mr. R , and 

I'll d soon make you willing." 

The old Orr Tavern served its purpose well for many 
years, and the father, Joseph Orr, died a few years later. 







Map of Dallas Township, 1874. 

Scale, loo Perches to the Inch. 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 5 I 

and was succeeded first by his son, Miles Orr, and later by 
A. L. Warring, followed by another son, Albert S. Orr, late 
postmaster at Wilkes-Barre, in the proprietorship. On the 
night of April 27, 1857, ^^^ entire structure was destroyed 
by fire. Albert S. Orr was then owner and proprietor. 
With characteristic energy, he began immediately to rebuild, 
not on the old site, but on the more desirable one where 
the new hotel still stands, now known as Raub's hotel. This 
hotel was completed almost as it now stands (1886) within 
about six months after the destruction of the old one. It 
was the first three-story building erected in Dallas. It was 
followed soon after by another three-story building, the 
Odd Fellows' Hall, still standing (1886), erected by Joseph 
Atherholt, Esq. Those buildings were considered very 
large and grand for that place at the time they were built, 
and they added much to the dignity and importance of the 
village. On the completion of the latter building, the Odd 
Fellows' Lodge, which formerly had been held at Hunts- 
ville, was moved to Dallas. A lodge or chapter of the Ma- 
sonic fraternity has since been established in the same 
building.* 

SETTING OFF THE NEW TOWNSHIP OF DALLAS. 

As previously stated, the first efforts on the part of the 
citizens to get a separate township set apart to them, like 
some of their first efforts at getting roads opened, were of 
little avail. Some of the early petitions for roads, etc., for 
that country were stuck away in the files by malicious or 
irresponsible clerks, and were never allowed to appear again 
where action of the court could be taken on them. In one 
instance a clerk, wishing to emphasize his villainy, wrote 
some trifling words of disapproval on the petition, clearly 
indicating that it should never see light again, and it never 

* This building was burned down in 1894, and a new two-story building has been 
erected by the Odd Fellows in its place. 



52 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

did. No action of court was ever taken, and no record of 
it was ever made. 

The first petition for the new township fared a little bet- 
ter, but not much. It was filed at October sessions, 1814. 
The petition was signed by Nehemiah Ide, Joseph Worth- 
ington and others, inhabitants of Plymouth and Kingston 
townships, setting forth cogent reasons for their demands, 
and asked for practically the same boundaries given in the 
subsequent petition, and which was finally granted. 

Oliver Pettebone, Charles Chapman and Josiah Lewis 
were appointed viewers on this first petition, and that ap- 
pears to have been the last of it. There is no record of 
anything having ever been done by the viewers. After a 
year and a half patient waiting, another petition was pre- 
pared and numerously signed. It was presented at April 
sessions, 18 16, and Judge Gibson, who was then on the 
bench, appointed Anderson Dana, David Richard and 
Phineas Waller as viewers, with the order to "view and, any 
two agreeing that said township is necessary, they shall 
proceed to lay out the same, designating the lines by natu- 
ral lines or boundaries, if the same can be so designated, 
and make report thereon to the next court of quarter ses- 
sions" (August). Order issued May 4th, 18 16. 

At August sessions following (5th August), the report 
not being ready, the order was continued, viewers to report 
at next (November) sessions. 

In September, 18 16, the viewers filed their report, but on 
5th November, 18 16, it was referred back to them again to 
make a plot or draft as well of the new township laid out 
as of the township out of which it was taken, and to make 
report thereon at next Court of Quarter Sessions (January, 
1 8 17). This work was completed on 5th December, 18 16, 
and at January sessions, 1817, the report was filed and con- 
firmed Jiisi. 

At April sessions, 18 17, which began on the first Mon- 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 53 

dap of that month, with Hon. Thomas Burnsides, President 
Judge, and Jesse Fell, assistant judge, on the bench, the 
following order was made in relation to that report, viz : 
"The court confirms the division, and in testimony of the 
respect which the court entertains for the late Alexander 
James Dallas,* call the new township ^Dallas! " 

On the loth day of April, 1817, the court order and 
direct "that Isaac Fuller be appointed constable for the 
new township of Dallas, and further direct a rule to issue, 
returnable forthwith, to be served by the sheriff on said 
Isaac Fuller to appear to show cause, if any there be, why 
he will not perform the office of constable for the ensuing 
year." 

"Rule issued, whereupon, on the 5th of August, 1817, 
the said Isaac Fuller, being in court, accepted the appoint- 
ment, whereupon he was sworn according to law." 

William Fuller and Peter Worthington were appointed 
supervisors at the same court for the first year. 

The list of officers "elected, returned or appointed" for 
Dallas township from 1818 to 1844, as they appear upon 
the records of the Court of Quarter Sessions of Luzerne 
county, are as follows, viz : [See following pages.] 

* Alexander James Dallas died at Trenton, N. J., 14th January, 1817. 



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FIRST DISTRICT OF TAXABLES AND ASSESSMENTS 
IN THE TOWNSHIP OF DALLAS. 1818. 







QUALITY AND PRICE 
PER ACRE. 
















IMPROVED 
LAND. 


UNIMPROVED 
LAND. 






NAMES. 


i 

s 






b! 

?! 
■21 


•2 

s 


5; 

a 




5; 

i 

■2 


s 


i 
s 




i 


a 



a 

d 


REMARKS. 
Total Value. 


Tibbels Baldwin . 






.5 
8 
6 

6 

3 
5 

6 
5 

6 

2 

3 
2 


25 

20 
20 

15 

7 

10 

7 

10 
20 

12 
27 
28 
25 
24 
50 


7 
10 

8 
2 
10 

5 
6 

8 


10 

50 


26 

50 
30 
100 
70 

ID 
120 

"5 
20 

50 

74 

50 
100 
100 

• • 

50 
26 

's'o 
75 

40 
100 


24 
200 
24 
49 
210 
160 

90 

90 
135 
35 

30 
45 
60 

79 
176 
177 

136 

25 

52 
258 

50 

176 
no 
134 

130 

178 

23 

294 

230 

140 


100 
20 


I 
2 
2 
2 
2 
2 

I 
2 

3 
2 

I 
I 
I 

3 

I 

2 

I 

I 
I 
I 

I 

I 

I 
I 

I 


• 

• 
2 

I 
I 

I 


I 

1 

I 

I 

2 
2 

I 

2 
2 
2 

I 

I 
2 

2 

'^ 


2 

2 

3 
2 

• 
2 

■ 

• 
2 

_ 

2 
2 

2 

■ 


2 
3 
I 
2 

I 
3 

3 

2 
4 

4 

I 

3 

2 

2 
I 

I 

2 

I 
I 

4 

I 
2 

I 


118. 

652. Single Freeman, $100. 






979. Saw-mill, 5175. 






498. 


Jacob I. Bogardus . 




542. 
629. 


Major Church . . 
Daniel Davidson . 
Aaron Duffy . . . 
Warren Davidson 
Daniel Davidson . 
Jeremiah Fuller . . 
Isaac Fuller .... 




Single Freeman, $100. 

f Transferred to Jos. L. Wotth- 
\ ington and Isaac Fuller. 

150. 
32. "Tenant."' 

130. 

201. 

526. 


William Fuller . . 




781. 


Abraham Fuller . 
Stephen Fuller . . 




f TOO transferred to J. Orr. 
"5- j Half saw-mill, $75. 
202. 
829. Half saw-mill, $75. 






354- 






634. 


Richard Honeywell 
William Honeywell 


2d ; ; 


698. 
870. 


Thomas Honeywell 
Abram Honeywell 
William Honeywell, 
Joseph Honeywell 

John Honeywell, 2d 

Nehimiah Ide, Jr . 
Nehimiah Ide . . . 


30 
16 
6 

22 

15 
30 

'20 

40 

7 
6 

10 
20 


Single Freeman, $100. 

Single Freeman, Sioo. 

Single Freeman, $100. 

f Removed — Transferred to 

1 Henry H. King. 
Carpenter, $100. ) Moved since 
S.Freem'n,$ioo.J Trien. Ass't. 
760. 

303. 


Nathaniel Ide 

John Ide 

Stephen and Ezra Ide . . . 
William Ide 

Joseph Jackson 

Henry H. King 

Henry Kizer . 

Henry Kizer, 2d 

Conrad Kunkle 

James Mears 

Ephraim McCoy 

Isaac Montanye 

John Man 

John Orr 


128. 
418. 
485- 
42. 

f Moved in since Triennial 
^°3- \ Assessment. 
374- 
336. 

f Berwick land transferred to 
( Alex. Ferguson. 

/Removed — Land transferred 

1 to Aaron Becket. 
576. 

65. 
617. 

/Moved in since Triennial 
474- \ Assessment. 

/Carpenter, $60. Moved in 

\ since Triennial Assessm't. 
382. Singleman, |ioo. 


Joseph Orr, Jr . . 
John Ross . . . 

















QUALITY AND PRICE 
PER ACRE. 
















IMPROVED 
LAND. 


UNIMPROVED 
LAND. 






NAMES. 




5 '^ 




s 




i. 


■i 


1 


S 



1 


5 



1 


REMARKS. 
Total V'ahif. 


Christian Rice . 
Mary Robbiiis . 
Elijah Robbins . 
Stephen Robbins 
Peter Ryman . . 
Elam Spencer . . 
Philip Shaver . . 
Thomas Swayze 
William Shaver . 

Daniel Spencer . 

Jos. L. Worthing 
and Isaac Fuller 
Joseph Worthingt 
John Whitenian . 

David Wynkoop 

Samuel and John 
Abel Wheeler . . 
Ney Wheeler . . 
Amariah Watson i 
James Nesbitt 

Aaron Burkel . 

John M. Little . 

Lewis Griffin (?) 

William Newman 

Oliver Pettebone 
Jonah McClellon 
Alex. Ferguson . 


to 
3n 

W 

\\\ 


il 
J 

oi 

d 

J 


den 

1- 




27 


8 

6 

10 

25 
10 

1 3 

2 28 

3 

5 
6 24 

4 6 

9 

18 

I 12 

15 
•4 
10 

I 718 


3 
5? 


20 

25 




5 
5 

23 

20 

105 
20 

10 
10 

30 

8 
75 


62 

20 

37 

80 
80 

25 

141 

323 

145 
60 

160 
73 
82 
119 
100 

59 
60 
15 


120 

100 


54 


I 
6 


2 

2 

• 
I 

I 
I 

2 

34 


2 

2 
2 

. 

2 
2 

2 
2 

33 


2 

I 

I 

2 

3 
I 

I 

I 

2 
2 

2 

2 

2 

I 

2 

I 

73 


199. 
22. 
42. 

Carpenter, $60. 
162. 
152. 
511- 

252. Singleman, $100. 
132. 

f Removed— Land trans- 
\ ferred to O. Pettebone. 

273- 

453- 
268. 

( Moved in since Trien- 
243- \ Dial Assessment. 
195- 
716. 
100. Single Freeman. 

348. 

g f Moved in since Trien- 

■ \ nial Assessment. 
/Moved in since Trien- 

^^' \ nial Assessment. 
323- 

/Moved in since Trien- 

■ \ nial Assessment. 
174. 

124. 
1 307. 


73 names. Totals . . 


105 


I 


597 


.5^54 


340 


20840 



RECAPITULATION. 

Total number of acres of improved land in Dallas twp. worth $38 per acre, 2 
" " " " " " " " " ^23 " " 71 

" " " " " " " " " $ 6 " " 718 

" " " " " " " " " ^ 3 " " 59 



Grand total improvtd land, 850 

Total nimiher of acres of unimproved land in Dallas twp. worth $4 jier a., 105 

" " " " " " " " " ^2 " 1597 

" " " " " " " " " $1 " 5254 

" " " " " " " " " " " 50c " 220 

Grand total of seated land, improved and unimproved, 8026 

Total number of dwelling houses, 54 

" " " outhouses, ... 6 

" " " horses, 34 

" " " oxen, 33 

" " " cows, 73 

Total valuation of foregoing, ;^20,840. 




Map of Dallas Township, 1884, 

Scale, 150 Perches to the Inch. 



\ 




DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 59 

All the balance of the vast territory then included in the 
township of Dallas was in the list of unseated lands, which 
was very large ; but few of the tracts would then sell for 
enough to pay the taxes. There have been no sales of un- 
seated lands in Dallas township for taxes for several years 
past. In fact, none have been advertised. This is striking 
evidence of the changes since the first organization of the 
township. The lands in Dallas township are now all in the 
seated lands, i. e., are occupied or improved lands. 

GROWTH AND CHANGES OF THE NEW TOWNSHIP OF DALLAS. 

The new township grew and prospered with great rapidity 
both in wealth and population. Starting with seventy-three 
taxables in 1818, the number was increased next year, 18 19, 
to eighty-eight. Among the new taxables of this year(i8i9) 
were Jared R. Baldwin, Abram S. Honeywell, Oliver Ide, 
Joseph Mears, Joseph Mears, Jr., and William Orr, all "sin- 
gle freeman." 

1820. In the year 1820 the number of taxable inhabi- 
tants had increased to 10 1. Among them appears for the 
first time the name of Peter B. Roushey, assessed as "Tay- 
lor." Among the improvements of this year must be noted 
the laying out of the great road from Wilkes-Barre to Brad- 
ford county line near Mehoopany Creek. This road is the 
one in use at present (with a few slight changes in Kingston 
borough) from Wilkes-Barre bridge, up Toby's Creek, 
through Dallas, Kunkle, Monroe, to Bowman's Creek, etc. 
Most of the way it was laid out on the line of the " Old 
State Road," which had been laid out years before, but not 
opened. The viewers who laid out this road were Joseph 
Slocum, George Cahoon, Samuel Thomas, Joseph Tuttle 
and John Bennett. This road was a very important im- 
provement, and to open it cost many years of hard work 
and large expenditures of money on the part of the citizens 
of Dallas township. It is interesting to show the scarcity 



60 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

of other roads then existing to intersect it, as well as the 
paucity of buildings and improvements along its line. 

Hardly had the organization of the new township been 
completed before dissatisfaction appeared in the southwest- 
ern corner, and at August sessions, 1820, a petition was filed 
in behalf of inhabitants of Huntington, Union and Dallas 
townships, setting forth that whereas the line between the 
counties of Luzerne and Lycoming appears never to have 
been run, and in consequence of that circumstance and other 
causes, the lines of the townships of Huntington, Union and 
Dallas have been incorrectly laid out and run, and marked 
erroneously upon the ground, and asking for viewers to be so 
appointed to view and correct these errors. 

Whereupon the court appoint Jacob I. Bogardus, Esq. 
(of Dallas), Shadrack Austin (of Union), and John Coons 
(of Huntington) to view said townships proposed to be 
altered, who, or any two them agreeing, shall make a draft 
or plot of said townships proposed to be made and desig- 
nating the same by natural boundaries if the same can be 
so designated, and make report thereof to the next Court 
of Quarter Sessions, etc., etc. 

At November sessions, 1820, the said viewers made re- 
port as follows, to wit : "We, the undersigned, appointed by 
the above court to run and make the lines therein mentioned, 
do report that in pursuance of said order, we, the subscri- 
bers, being two of the above named persons (having first been 
duly sworn) went upon the ground and run and marked the 
following described lines between the townships of Union 
and Dallas, for the northeasterly boundary of the township 
of Union, to wit: Beginning at the mouth of Hunlock's 
Creek ; thence north, 1 1 degrees west, 2 miles and 280 
perches to the southeast" (?) (west) "corner of the certified 
township of Bedford, and being the southeast" (?) (west) 
"corner of Dallas township ; thence on the Bedford line and 
a continuation of the same north, 34 degrees west, 15 miles 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 6 1 

and lOO perches to a hemlock marked for a corner on the 
county line. Also run the following described lines between 
the townships of Huntington and Union, for the westerly- 
boundary of Union, in the following manner, to wit : Be- 
ginning at the mouth of Shickshinny Creek ; thence north, 
63^ degrees west, one mile and 280 perches to the north- 
easterly corner of Huntington; thence on the Huntington 
line and a continuance of the same north, 21 degrees west, 
14 miles and 150 perches to a maple marked for a corner 
on the county line." 

This report was filed and confirmed iiisi November 8th, 

1820, and was confirmed absolutely on January 3d, 1821. 
Bogardus did not sign this report with the other viewers, 

probably because, as will be seen by comparing the maps, 
that this view took a considerable slice from the new town- 
ship of Dallas, and gave it to Union township, without any 
compensation or exchange. 

The year 1820 may be noted also as the year when, under 
the new laws, the assessors of each township were required 
to return the number of children between the ages of five and 
twelve years, whose parents were unable to pay for their 
schooling. No report was made under this law for Dallas 
township in 1820, but the next year (182 1) Joseph L. Worth- 
ington was assessor, and under that law he reported the 
children of Nicholas Keiser, John Mann, David Wynkoop 
and David Davidson, eleven in all. 

There were one hundred and six taxables on the list for 

1 82 1, It was also the year in which Judge Baldwin died — 
date June 9th ; age forty-six years eleven months and 
twenty-five days. 

1821-1822. During this year Aaron Burket conveys his 
land to William Brigg and removes. John Eaton, farmer, 
Russell T. Green, shoemaker, and Joseph Hoover became 
residents of Dallas township. Asa Fox sells to Oliver Pet- 
tebone and removes. Roswell Holcomb and John M. Lit- 



62 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

tie remove from township. John Orr buys eight acres of 
land and one log house of Jonah McLellon. Deming Spen- 
cer (the first white child born in the territory of Dallas town- 
ship) attained his majority and appears first time as "single 
freeman" in assessment books. Also buys his father's farm. 
Cornelius Sites, a wheelright, moves into the township and 
buys land of William Newman. William Sites also moves 
in and buys of David Wynkoop. Nicholas Keizer's chil- 
dren are the only ones reported whose parents are too poor 
to pay for their schooling. Total taxables, ii8. 

1 822-1 823. Joseph Ryman's name appears for first time 
in the assessment books — is assessed with two acres of land, 
Warren Davidson becomes a "cooper" and Thomas Tuttle 
a "wheelmaker." Total taxables 129. 

1 823-1 824. Very hard times. The children of Joseph 
Wright, John Thorn, Peter Gary, Aaron Duffy, Nicholas 
Keiser and Nathan Worden were returned to be educated 
by the county, because the parents were too poor. Among 
the persons last named John Thorn was a character de- 
serving of a moment's special notice. He was always poor, 
shiftless and lazy. He early became a charge on the town- 
ship, and remained a town pauper the balance of his days. 
In the midst of his greatest poverty he was given to boast- 
ing and high-sounding talk. The poormasters of Dallas 
township were in the habit of giving him an occasional "poor 
order" on some farmer or dealer for a few dollars, which 
he could "trade out" and get something to eat. Backed 
with one of these "poor orders," John was for the time 
wealthy and assumed the importance of a capitalist. With 
it he would start for some store or farm house where he 
intended to trade it out. He usually began by asking the 
proprietor if this man's order (producing the poor order and 
pointing to the name of the poormaster at the bottom) was 
good and would be accepted. While the order was being 
read John would explain that the giver or the maker of the 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 63 

order was owing him a considerable sum of money, and 
being short of ready cash, had asked him (John) to take 
this order; that being always willing to accommodate his 
neighbors, he had consented to accept this order provided 
it could be used the same as cash. On being assured that 
the order was good, John's next inquiry was usually for 
pickled side pork of the cheapest grade. Feeling that some 
apology or explanation might be due, he would generally 
add that he had plenty of '^gammons" at home, but that 
they were still in the process of smoking or some other por- 
tion of the curing treatment. All this and much more like 
it would occur, yet always with greatest seriousness on 
John's part. He died only a few years ago. In one of his 
later illnesses a physician had been called, and had left 
certain medicines to be given at certain specified hours. 
John had no clock or other time keeper in the house, and 
at night had no way of telling the hour except by the crow- 
ing of the rooster, which he believed occurred every hour 
with regularity. One night John grew very much worse, 
and, thinking that the hour for taking his medicine had 
arrived, and that the cock had gone to sleep or forgotten to 
crow, sent his son John, Jr., out to waken him and remind 
him of his duty. After a good deal of squeezing and shak- 
ing up, John, Jr., succeeded in making the rooster crow. 
The medicine was of course given at once, and the natural 
relief followed. 

In the same house where John spent his later years lived 
later, one Ira Gordon, a carpenter and farmer. Mr. Gor- 
don's notions of family duties and farm economy were most 
tersely expressed in the remark credited to him, that "a 
woman, a yoke of oxen and a wood-shod sled are three 
things that never ought to be allowed to go off the farm." 

1 824-1 825. In this year there were many transfers of 
real estate, and the number of taxables in Dallas township 
is increased to 164. 



64 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

1 825-1 826. The Triennial Assessment was made this 
year showing a slight reduction in the number of taxables 
as compared with the previous year. 

1826-1827. Joseph Shonk, this year, purchases one- 
fourth interest in the Christian Rice saw-mill and log house 
at McLellonsville. Number of taxables 170. 

At August sessions, 1827, an attempt was made to form 
a new township from Union and Dallas townships, but the 
opposition was so strong that the viewers appointed to view 
and lay it out reported adversely to it. 

1 827-1 828. The first mention is made this year of a post 
office in Dallas township, and Jacob Hoff is assessed as 
post-master at a valuation of fifty dollars for the office. 
Thomas Irwine begins his long career as justice of the peace. 

1 828-1 829. Levi Hunt died of small pox, caught while 
on a rafting trip down to Baltimore, Md. This is said to 
have been the first death in Dallas township from that dread 
disease. 

The leading event of this year was the division of Dallas 
township by cutting off Lehman township from it. 

PETITION. 

"To the Honorable, the Judges of the Court of Common 
Pleas of the county of Luzerne, now composing a Court of 
Quarter Sessions of the Peace in and for said county: 

"The petition of the subscribers, inhabitants of the town- 
ship of Dallas, in said county, humbly showeth : That your 
petitioners labor under great inconvenience from present 
size and shape of the said township of Dallas, many of them 
being distant from the place of holding elections and doing 
public business, they believe it would be much for the con- 
venience of the public generally, as well as for themselves, 
if a Nezv Tozvnship should be formed out of the now town- 
ship of Dallas, and that this can be done without injury to 
the part which should remain. Your petitioners therefore 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 65 

pray your honors to appoint three impartial men to inquire 
into the propriety of dividing the said township of Dallas, 
and setting off a new township lying west of line commenc- 
ing at the point where the line between lots Nos. 7 and 8 
of the certified township of Bedford meets the line of Ply- 
mouth township, and running the course of said line between 
said lots until it shall meet the line of the township of North- 
moreland. And your petitioners will ever pray, etc. 
(Signed) : 

"William Sites. "Elijah Ide. 

C. King. Joseph Worthington. 
William Ide. Daniel J. Whiteman. 
Stephen Ide. Elijah Worthington. 
Nathaniel Ide. J. B. Worthington. 
Oliver McKeel. Oliver Ide. 

John O. Mosely. William Harris. 

John Ide. John Whiteman. 

Simon P. Sites. Nehemiah Ide. 

Julius D. Pratt. Jeremiah Fuller. 

Ezra Ide. Amisa B. Baldwin. 

William Fuller. Clinton Brown. 

Cornelius Sites. Thomas Major, Jr. 

Robert Major. Thomas Major, Sr. 

James Mott. Simeon F. Rogers. 

D. Banister. Asaph W. Pratt. 

"Petition filed January 7th, 1829. 

"January Sessions, 1829. Viewers, Benjamin Dorrance, 
Ziba Hoyt, James Barnes." 

Luzerne County, ss : 

"At a Court of General Sessions held at Wilkes- 
[seal]. Barre, in and for the county of Luzerne, the 
first Monday of January, in the year of our 
Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine, before 
the Honorable David Scott, president, and Matthias Hol- 
lenback and Jesse Fell, esquires, justices of said court. The 
petition of Elijah Ide and others was read praying for 
viewers to be appointed to view township and to inquire 



66 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA, 

into the propriety of dividing the township of Dallas, and 
setting off a new township lying west of line commencing 
at the point where the line between lots Nos. 7 and 8 of the 
certified township of Bedford meets the line of Plymouth 
township and running the course of said line between said 
lots until it shall meet the line of the township of North- 
moreland. Whereupon the court appoint Benjamin Dor- 
rance, Ziba Hoyt and James Barnes, viewers, who are to 
view, and any two of them agreeing, are to make a plot or 
draft of the township proposed to be, and of the division 
line proposed to be made therein, designating the same by 
natural lines and boundaries, if the same can be so desig- 
nated, and make report thereof to the next Court of Quar- 
ter Sessions. 

"In testimony, that the foregoing is a true copy from the 
records, I have hereunto set my hand and the seal of the 
said court and certify the same accordingly, 

"For C. D. Shoemaker, Clerk. 
"Harris Colt." 

"To the honorable judges within named: In pursuance 
of within order we do report that due examination has been 
made, and we are decidedly of opinion, for many reasons, 
that the request of petitioners ought to be granted. The 
annexed draft represents the situation of the townships and 
several adjoining. (Signed), 

Viewers, two days each, "James Barnes. 

we have been sworn and "Benjamin Dorrance." 

affirmed. "James Barnes. 

"Benjamin Dorrance." 

"Return filed April 7, 1829. 

"Remonstrance filed April 7, 1829. 

"November Sessions, 1829. Confirmed by the name of 
Lehman from respect to memory of Dr. William Lehman, 
of Philadelphia, a distinguished friend and advocate of in- 
ternal improvements." 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 6/ 

REMONSTRANCE. 

"To the Honorable, the Judges of the Court of Quarter 
Sessions of the Peace, in and for the county of Luzerne : 
"The petition of the undersigned inhabitants of the town- 
ship of Dallas would most respectfully show : That they 
have witnessed, with much regret, an attempt made by some 
individuals to divide the township aforesaid. The object, 
we verily believe, is not the advancement of the publick 
interest, but the gratification of private ends. By the pro- 
posed division the iiiterest of the township generally will be 
contravened. The extent of the inhabited part of said town- 
ship, and that which is inhabitable within the compass of 
many years is not too large for the convenient transaction 
of the township business, and the number of inhabitants, as 
may be seen from the lists of taxables, is not too great for 
the convenient accommodation of the people at elections. 
With these views we would respectfully remonstrate against 
the proposed or any division of the townsnip of Dallas at 
this time, deeming it inexpedient, uncalled for hy public k 
convenience. March 7th, 1829. 
(Signed), 

"Abram S. Honeywell. "Ephraim Moss. 

Smith Tuttle. Peter Ryman. 

William Shaver. Fayette Allen. 

Thomas Irwin. David Beam. 

Jacob Honeywell. Sylvanus Fuller. 

William Honeywell. Watson Baldwin. 

Bur Baldwin. Nathan Wheeler. 

Marvin Wheeler. Jonathan Williams. 

Alexander Ferguson. Henry Kizer, Jr. 

Henry H. King. Almon Church. 

Elam Spencer. Thomas Hoover. 

Peter B. Roushey. Edwin McCarty. 

Samuel Hunnywell. Stephen Brace. 

Simeon Spencer. Joseph Hoover. 

John Simpson, Jr. Thomas Swayze. 

Nathaniel Warden. James L. Williamson. 



68 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 



Deming Spencer. 
Peter Seaman. 
Joseph Hunneywell. 
Peter Shaver, 2d. 
Nathaniel Hunneywell. 
Isaac Hunneywell. 
Richard Hunneywell, Jr. 
C. C. Hunnwell. 
Philip Kunkel. 
John Simpson. 
David Donley. 
Adam Hoover. 
J. W. Darling. 
John Wilson. 
Simon Anderson. 
Elijah Ayrs. 

William Hunneywell, 2d. 
C. B. Shaver. 



James Shaver. 
George Shaver. 
Asa W. Shaver. 
John Miller. 
James Ross. 
Lawrence Ross. 
Jacob Wilcocks. 
Morris Baldwin. 
Anthony Foss. 
James Steward. 
Garat Durland. 
Miles Spencer. 
Edwin Church. 
John Wort, Jr. 
James Symers. 
Daniel Wodward. 
R. Hunnewell (sic). 
Thomas Hunneywell. 
William Hunt." 



Joseph G. Ryman. 
"Filed April 6, 1829." 

This division left the following named taxables in Dallas 
township, viz : Fayette Allen, Elijah Ayres, Eleanor Bald- 
win, Burr Baldwin, Watson Baldwin, William Briggs, Wil- 
liam Bradford, Nathaniel Wheeler, Stephen Brace, Edwin 
Church, Benjamin Chandler, Almon Church, Peter Conner, 
Aaron Duffee, David Donley, Garret Derling, Alexander 
Ferguson, Sylvanus Fuller, Anthony Foss, Jacob Gould, 
Richard Honeywell, William Honeywell, Sr., William 
Honeywell, 2d, Thomas Honeywell, Abram S. Honeywell, 
Joseph Honeywell, Jacob Honeywell, Nathan S. Honeywell, 
Charles C. Honeywell, Richard Honeywell, Jr., Isaac Honey- 
well, Samuel Honeywell, William Hunt, *Matthias Hollen- 
back, Jonathan Husted, Adam Hoover, Thomas Irwin, 
Philip Kunkle, Henry H. King, Henry Keizer, Jr., Griffin 
Lewis, Ira Manvill, Jonah McLellon, Jacob Maxwell, Jared 
R. Baldwin, John Simpson, Sr., Edward McCarty, John 
Miller, Peggy Montanye (widow), Ephraim Moss, Jacob 

* Non-resident. 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 69 

Nulton, *James Nesbitt, 2d, Michael Neeley, John Orr, 
Oliver Pettibone, Andrew Puterbaugh, Peter B. Roushey, 
Mary Robbins, James Ross, Lawrence Ross, Christian Rice, 
Jacob Rice, Peter Ryman, Joseph S. Ryman, Deming Spen- 
cer, Simeon Spencer, Miles Spencer, Thomas Swayze, James 
Shaver, John P. Shaver, heirs of Philip Shaver, Sarah See- 
ley, William Shaver, Simon P. Sites, James Stewart, Chris- 
topher Shaver, Peter Seaman, James Somers, Peter Shaver, 
2d, George Shaver, Frances Southworth, heirs of Joseph 
Shonk, John Simpson, Sr., John Simpson, Jr., heirs of Jo- 
seph Shotwell, David Stewart, Thomas Tuttle, Abram Van- 
scoy, Ebenezer Winters, Daniel Woodward, Jacob Wilcox, 
John Worden, Samuel Worden, Abram Worden, *Calvin 
Wadhams, Marvin Wheeler, Daniel Higgins, John Wort, 
Jr., John Wilson, James Williamson, Jonathan Williams, 
Simon Anderson, Lawrence Beam. Total, 104. 

The following named taxables were transferred to Leh- 
man township, viz : Abed Baldwin, Amza B. Baldwin, Amos 
Baldwin, David Bannister, David Beam, Jeremiah Brown, 
Clinton Brown, Joshua Derling, Stephen Fuller, Annis Ful- 
ler, Jeremiah Fuller, Isaac Fuller, William Fuller, Joseph 
E. Haf{, postmas fe7^,Wi\\iam Harris, Joseph Hoover, Thomas 
Hoover, Daniel Higgins, Lewis Higgins, Elijah Ide, Ezra 
Ide, Stephen Ide, William Ide, Ephraim King, Jonathan O. 
Moseley, *Garrick Mallery (purchaser of J. I. Borgardus 
interest), Egbert B. Mott, James Mott, Barton Mott, Thomas 
Major, Sr., Thomas Major, Jr., *John Major, Oliver McKeel, 
Asaph A. Pratt, Jonathan Rogers, Simeon F. Rogers, Wil- 
liam Sites, Cornelius Sites, John Vanlone, Joseph L. Worth- 
ington, Jonathan Worthington, Elijah Worthington, Squire 
Wedge, John Whiteman, Daniel Whiteman, Benjamin F. 
Westley. Total 5 i. 

1 829-1 830. This year William Hunt's land is transfer- 
red to William Thomas of Wilkes-Barre, and Hunt moves 

* Non-resident. 



70 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

away. John Orr conveys thirty acres of unimproved land 
to WilHam A. Kirkendall, and fifty acres to Henry Keizer. 
Christian Rice buys back, from the estate of Joseph Shonk, 
deceased, the one-fourth interest in saw-mill and log house 
which he conveyed to Shonk a few years prior. Joseph S. 
Ryman buys three acres from heirs of Joseph Shonk in vil- 
lage of McLellonsville ; also three acres from Jonah McLel- 
lon in same place. James Shaver, William Shaver, Peter 
Shaver, George Shaver and Asa W. Shaver, buy their farms 
from estate of Philip Shaver, deceased. 

1 830-1 83 1. Simon Anderson acquires sixty-eight acres 
of land from James Nesbitt, Jr., being part of certified lot 
No. — in Bedford township. Anthony Foss buys three 
acres of Jonah McLellon near village. McLellon also sells 
one acre near village to Richard Honeywell. Real estate 
very active and many transfers made. 

At January Sessions, 1 83 1 , the petition of Josiah W. New- 
bery and others was filed praying for viewers to be appointed 
to view and inquire into the propriety of making a new town- 
ship laid off from the back part of Northmoreland and Dallas, 
and out of others of the certified townships. Court appoint 
Elias Hoyt, Doctor John Smith and Harris Jenkins, viewers. 

At August Sessions, 1831, the viewers reported in favor 
of the township, as follows: "Beginning at southwest cor- 
ner of certified township of Northmoreland, and running 
thence on line of John Nicholson, north 10 degrees west, to 
corner of Robert Morris ; thence on the line of Robert Mor- 
ris north, 18 degrees west, 234 perches to a white oak; 
thence southeast corner of tract in the warrantee name of 
Thomas Poulton ; thence north on line of said Poulton and 
others to the line of Eaton township ; thence on line of 
Eaton township west to Marsh creek ; thence down Marsh 
creek to its intersection with Bowman's creek ; thence on 
line running nearly west to the northeast corner of a tract 
of land surveyed to John Pennington ; thence on the line of 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. /I 

John Pennington and others west until it intersects the line 
of Windham township ; thence on the Windham line until 
it intersects the line of Lehman township ; thence south to 
the main branch of Bowman's creek ; thence east on the 
line between the tracts in the name of Aaron Bailey and 
Uriah Bailey to the southeast corner of a tract of land sur- 
veyed to Daniel Mount ; thence to northeast corner of John 
Merrideth ; thence on line of John Merrideth and Jesse 
Fell south, 75 degrees east, 314 perches to a chestnut on 
Harvey's Lake, near the west corner thereof at the mouth 
of a little run ; thence in a northeasterly direction to a beach 
the northwest corner of a tract of land surveyed to William 
Wyllis and on the line of Dallas township ; thence on the 
line of Dallas south, 70 degrees east, 372 perches to the 
beginning." 

At January Sessions, 1832, this report was confirmed ab- 
solutely by the name of Monroe township. 

1 831-1832. Warren A. Barney buys 200 acres of tract 
in warrantee name of John Olden. John Snyder buys 1 18 
acres of Eleanor and Lewis Baldwin. Christopher Snyder 
buys fourteen acres of land, one house and two outhouses 
of Sylvanus Fuller, who sells other of his lands soon after 
to William Snyder and moves West. On this land Christo- 
pher Snyder built and started a distillery a few years later. 
Under the new assessment law the assessors of Dallas town- 
ship made following report for year 1832, viz: 

"A true list of notes and bonds made taxable for use of 
Commonwealth : 
"Enos Frisky & Co., two hundred and sixty-one 

dollars in notes, ^20i.00 

"Charles C. Honeywell, sixty dollars in notes, . . 60.OO 
"Adam Shaver, eighty-five dollars in notes, . . . 85.00 
"William Honeywell, Sr., forty-five dollars in notes, 45.OO 
"Samuel and Isaac Honeywell, fifty dollars in notes, 50.00 
"Bank and Turnpike Stock, none. 
"Taverns, none. 
"Poor Children, none." 



72 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

1 832-1 833. Sanford Moore buys all the real estate of 
John Wort, Sr., within township of Dallas, seventy-two 
acres. Many other transfers of real estate. Joseph Ryman 
is assessed as postmaster. This post-office was at his house, 
which stood where the old Orr tavern stood, now where 
the Odd Fellows hall stands. This was the first post-office 
within the limits of the present territory of Dallas township. 

1 833-1 834. Joseph Anderson buys 194 acres of land, part 
of tract in warrantee name of Amos Wickersham. William 
Algerson buys sixty-five acres ; Joseph Hoover buys thirty- 
seven acres ; Felix Hoover buys fifty acres, all of same tract. 
Thomas Irwin buys eighty-two acres from the Joseph San- 
som tract. Charles Moore buys 130 acres, and Jacob Nul- 
ton buys eighty-six acres of same tract. The latter also 
buys forty acres, part of tract in warrantee name of John 
Olden, Francis Southworth buys seventeen acres from 
Sansom tract, and fifty acres from the John Olden tract. 
Jacob Wilcox buys twenty-nine acres from the John Olden 
tract. Jacob Ryman appears, for the first time, as a single 
freeman, and seats 100 acres of tract in warrantee name of 
Josiah Lusby. Ransom Demund seats eighty acres of tract 
in warrantee name of Alexander Emsbry. Francis P. South- 
worth buys sixty-eight acres of Alexander Emsbry tract. 

1 834-1 835. William C. Roushey appears, for first time, 
as a taxable. Philip Kunkle and James Shaver elected 
school directors, they being the first to be elected under the 
new school law providing for the establishment of common 
or public schools, which have continued to this day. 

Dallas township continues to fill up very rapidly, and the 
unseated lands are taken up and seated so rapidly that in 
the year 1835, the long list embracing hundreds of tracts of 
unseated land at time of organizing the new township in 
18 1 7, was reduced to the following, viz : 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 



n 



No. of 

Acres. Name of Warrantee. 

400 Simon Dunn, 

430 Jacob Dunn, . 

438 . Aaron Dunn, 

400 Anthony Dunn, 

354 James Dunn, . 

100 Jacob Downing, 

258 Alex. Emsbry, 

340 John Eley . . 

50 Lawrence Erb, 

442 George Fell, 

440 Simon Harman, 

338 Josiah Lusby, 

316 Josiah Lusby, 

85 Patrick Moore, 

200 John Olden, . 

58 Joseph Sansom, 

41 . Amos Wickersham, 

417 Jos. Wyllis, , 

421 Wm. Wyllis, , 

200 Wm. Sansom, 

60 Abiel Abbott, 

186 Jos. Shotwell heirs, 

65 acres and 6 perches, Charles F. Wyllis, 
1 50 acres and 5 perches, John App (owner), 
240 Joseph Mears, . . 



Assessed 
Value. 

^400.00 

430.00 

438.00 

400.00 

354.00 

100.00 

258.00 

340.00 

50.00 
442.00 
440.00 
338.00 
316.00 

85.00 
200.00 

58.00 

41.00 
417.00 
42 1 .00 
200.00 

60.00 
I 86.00 

65.50 

150.75 
240.00 



1835-1836. John Anderson buys fifty acres of land from 
Joseph Anderson. William C. Roushey assessed as car- 
penter, and buys three acres and one house of Joseph Ry- 
man. Joseph Ross, carpenter, buys thirteen acres of Thomas 
Irwin. Jonas Randall settles in the township and buys fifty- 
one acres and a house of John Wilson, also 175 acres of 
Leclere.(?) William Randall appears, for first time, as a 
"single freeman." Charles Smith and William A. Barnes 
buy seventy-five acres of Sylvanus Fuller. Henry Ander- 
son appears as a "single freeman" for first time. Daniel 
Spencer, Jr., buys fifty acres of land of Joseph Anderson. 

1 836-1 837. Joseph S. Allen buys 130 acres of land with 



74 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

house and barn from Charles Moore. John Anderson buys 
fifty and Henry Anderson ninety-four acres of land from 
Joseph Anderson. Joseph Castleline buys ninety-five acres 
from Alfred D. Woodward. William Honeywell, 2d, buys 
thirty acres of Simon Anderson. Richard Honeywell buys 
one acre of Joseph Ryman. C. Butler buys 264 acres from 
G. M. Hollenback and Joseph Ryman (part of lots i and 2 
certified Bedford). A. Thomas buys 100 acres at sheriff's 
sale of H. P. Hopkins and George Shaver (part of lot 5) (?). 
Thomas Sweazy buys fifty-one acres of Joseph Hoover. 
Joseph Hoover buys twenty-nine acres of Philip Hoover. 
Joseph Reiley buys five acres of Jonathan Husted. C. 
Kunkle buys twenty-five acres of Felix Hoover. Henry 
King buys thirteen acres and one house of Ephraim Moss, 
also twenty-two acres of Jacob Rice (part of present Rob- 
ert Norton farm, now John Reynolds plot of lots). Jacob 
Gould buys 165 acres of Nicholas Keizer. Rev. Griffin 
Lewis dies. 

Christopher Snyder buys 118 acres, house and barn of 
J. Fisher. J. Fisher buys twelve acres, house and barn of 
William Snyder. A. S. Honeywell buys lot of land of T. 
Tuttle and Peter Seaman. Daniel Spencer buys fifty acres 
of Joseph Anderson. 

1 837-1 838. Solomon Frantz is assessed as cabinetmaker. 
Jacob Miers takes out a tavern license and starts a hotel on 
southeast corner at cross-roads near the "Goss" or "Corner 
School House," about one-half mile north of McLellons- 
ville on road to Kunkle post-office. Excepting the license 
granted to Peter B. Roushey in 1823, before referred to, 
this was the first hotel or tavern license within present ter- 
ritory of Dallas township. Jacob Miers kept this tavern 
for about two years, when he died of smallpox, which he 
caught while on a rafting trip down the Susquehanna River 
in the same manner as in the case of Levi Hunt before re- 
ferred to. Miers was buried alone a few miles back of the 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 75 

spot where his tavern stood. The well in the corner of the 
field south of the Corner School House now nearly marks 
the spot where the Miers hotel stood. The level ground at 
that point made it a favorite spot for the Dallas millitary 
company to meet and drill on training days. The last train- 
ing there was the day when the first of what proved in a 
few days to be Miers' fatal illness began to appear. Miers 
was up and about that day, but was feeling very ill. A 
week later he was dead. On that day, as on previous oc- 
casions, there was a great deal of drinking and fighting after 
the training was over. These fights grew more from an ex- 
huberance of masculine strength and physical good feeling, 
accompanied by a desire to see who was the "best man," 
than from any anger or bad blood, though what was begun 
in sport often ended in angry and brutal affrays. 

Among the trades which appeared this year on the as- 
sessment books are Abram Huey, cooper; Nathan Mon- 
tanye, blacksmith ; Joseph Orr, carpenter (moved in this 
year); Edward O'Mealey, cooper; William Shaver, carpen- 
ter; Peter Shaver, 2d, carpenter; Peter Seaman, shoemaker; 
Joseph Castiline, blacksmith ; Abram Huey, Jr., cooper.' 

1 838-1 839. Jacob Frantz buys sixty acres of land from 
Thomas Irwin. David Fulmer buys 100 acres from Griffith 
Lewis heirs (Eypher farm) (?). P. N. Foster buys sixty 
acres, house and barn from Almon Church ; Thomas Irwin 
buys fifty-seven acres of William Hoover. William Hoover 
buys fifty acres of the William Sansom tract. Jacob Rice, 2d, 
appears for the first time as a taxable, and buys thirty-seven 
acres from Abram King. William A. Kirkendall buys sixty 
acres of Abram Thomas. Philip Kunkle sells 112 acres to 
Conrad Kunkle. Peter Ryman dies. Abram Ryman attains 
his majority, and buys twenty-five acres from Abram Thom- 
as. Jacob Ryman conveys his land to Nathaniel S. Honey- 
well and moves west. Thomas Sweazy sells out to William 
Coolbaugh and moves to Wilkes-Barre. 



76 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

1839-1840. Wesley Kunkle appears for first time as- 
sessed as single freeman. 

1840-1841. 

1 84 1. Thomas Irwin becomes one of the county com- 
missioners. John Fisher appears this year first time as 
"single freeman." Samuel Honeywell buys twenty-five 
acres of Simon Anderson. Nathaniell Honeywell buys 
twenty-four acres of Abram Ryman. Elijah Harris buys 
nine-four acres of the James Wyllis tract. Henry H. King 
dies. Philip Kunkle is made postmaster. Wesley Kunkle 
buys eighty-three acres of Chester Butler. William W. Kir- 
kendall buys same amount of same. 

Miles Orr opens his tavern, first time (1840), in village of 
McLellonsville, though still assessed, 1841, as carpenter. 
Abram and Richard Ryman buy 100 acres of heirs of Oliver 
Pettebone. Concerning this purchase I will quote from a 
letter received from John R. Bartron, an old resident of Dal- 
las, but now hving in Madison, Indiana. 

"I often think of the time when the Ryman boys bought 
the Pettebone farm (part of lot where present Ryman and 
Shaver steam saw-mill stands) of 100 acres for ;^iooo before 
daylight. Other parties were after it, but their mother pre- 
pared breakfast soon after midnight for the boys, who walked 
down to the valley (Kingston) and closed the sale. On 
their way back they met the other parties going to buy it. 
All wanted it because it had on it a mill seat and lots of pine, 
oak and hemlock timber. This was in 1841, and the be- 
ginning of their lumber trade. Some folks said the boys 
were 'daring and would break,' but all worked well to suc- 
cess." 

John R. Bartron also writes me some interesting remi- 
niscences of the early days of the nineteenth century in Dal- 
las. He says : 

" I can count many families living in log houses with a 
ladder only for a stairway to the loft, where one or more 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 77 

beds and sometimes house plunder and grain were kept ; 
while the room below — kitchen, dining-room and parlor — 
where the wool was carded into rolls, spun and sometimes 
woven into cloth, prepared for the puller, to be made into 
good warm winter goods. Here, too, flax goods for sum- 
mer wear, sheets, towels, etc., were made. It was a busy 
place; and then, sometimes grandmother, in her younger 
days, had carried to Wilkes-Barre butter and eggs. I heard 
her say she sold her butter readily to a tavern-keeper 
whose name was Steel for three cents more on the pound 
than the common price. I have been told that she cleared 
off the ground where the old Ferguson house stood on the 
day before a son was born. That son was a leader in de- 
bates at the old log school-house debating club, involving 
questions of history and science. Conrad Kunkle told me 
that he debated with the young man. This boy's father 
kept books in his house, took a weekly paper, and was a 
kind of Socrates in the home circles and neighborhood. 
Pine knots were plentiful and they made a good light." 

Wilham Shaver is made justice of peace in absence of 
Thomas Irwin. John King and Christian Rice are assessed 
as owners of watches, and the latter is also assessed as the 
owner of a carriage. This is the first instance of anyone 
being found in Dallas township who indulged in either of 
those luxuries. I am told, by those who remember the 
carriage, that it created a great sensation. Young and old 
went miles to see it, and Jacob Rice, for whose use it was 
purchased, was the envy of all who saw it. This carriage, I 
am informed, was an open buggy, and was taken from Wyo- 
ming to Dallas by Miles Orr, when he moved over there, 
and was by him traded to Christian Rice in exchange for a 
lot of land in the village of McLellonsville, which is now 
owned by Chester White, Dr. Spencer, and estate of William 
Randall, deceased. 

Peter Stots appears and is assessed as "silversmith." He 



7^ DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

was a traveling clock-tinker, and followed this till time of 
his death, which occurred within a few years past. He was 
afflicted with a very large wen in the neck just below his 
chin. His voice was very heavy, and he spoke with dis- 
tinctness and deliberation that was quite marked. He trav- 
eled all over the country on foot, and always carried his 
clock tinkering tools with him in a little bag. He was lia- 
ble to drop in at any time to see if anything needed atten- 
tion about the clock. His charges were little or nothing, 
but he expected to be invited to the table wherever he 
might be at meal time, and usually was so invited. Thus 
he made a living. 

1 841-1842. In 1842 William C. Roushey was assessor, 
and makes one or two characteristic records, Joseph Orr 
he returns as "carpenter, .j^jo, and wants to keep tavern." 
Henry Overton, constable, ;^50. Abram and Richard Ry- 
man build mill on land lately purchased of Pettebone heirs 
(where present steam mill below Dallas village now stands). 
This was the beginning of the lumbering business with both. 
Jacob Rice also begins lumbering on his father's mill in the 
village of McLellonsville. 

The new county of Wyoming is set off from Luzerne by 
Act of Assembly passed April 4th, 1842, but not to take 
effect until May ist, 1843, except so far as to enable the 
county commissioners to erect new buildings and to com- 
plete the survey by the courses and distances named in the 
Act. 

1842-1843. Thomas Irwin resumes the office of Justice 
of the Peace, which he held continuously thereafter for many 
years. No better evidence of his fitness for the position can 
be asked than this fact that, like Captain Jacob I. Bogardus, 
before spoken of, he was so long and so continuously re- 
tained in it. Miles Orr continues to be inn-keeper at Mc- 
Lellonsville. Ebenezer Parrish and A. C. Cowles assessed 
as "mill rights." Isaac Hughey, "shingle-maker." Mr. 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 79 

Hughey afterwards became quite famous as a shingle-maker. 
Whenever any extra nice or extra good shingles were 
wanted in Wilkes-Barre during his day, Isaac's shingles 
were quite sure to be sought ; and, if found, were equally 
sure to be satisfactory. He was proud of the reputation he 
had made in this respect, but he was poor and never could 
pay an old debt, either at a store or for rent. He moved 
annually or oftener, and lived wherever he could find an 
empty hovel that would hold him. For his last wife he 
married a Miss Moss, and the favorite joke with him was 
that he was a living refutation of the old adage, ''A rolling 
stone will gather no moss!' 

Franklin township is this year (1843) set off from parts 
of Kingston, Exeter and Dallas townships. 

This was the last pruning, except small corner from west- 
erly end of Lake township, that Dallas township, as origin- 
ally laid out and formed, was obliged to suffer. This leaves 
Dallas township with the same shape and size that it now has, 
and I give the list of taxables in Dallas township for the 
year 1844, the first complete list after Wyoming county and 
Franklin township had been cut off of, viz : Fayette Al- 
len, farmer; James Anderson, shoemaker; Henry Ander- 
son, farmer; Joseph Anderson, farmer; Elijah Ayres, farmer, 
and has money at interest; Alexander Albron, laborer; 
Harris Brown, laborer, single; Joseph Blasier, farmer; Miles 
Burbeck, farmer, "money at use" ; Abed Baldwin, farmer ; 
Daniel Brown, farmer ; Lawrence Beam ; Jacob W. Bishop, 
sawyer, single; Henry Boon, laborer; William C. Brace, 
farmer ; Stephen Brace, farmer ; William Croop, farmer ; 
Charles Cairl, laborer; George Cairl, sawyer; Palmer Carey, 
wheelwright; Garret Durland, farmer; Henry S. Low, 
farmer; James Durland, carpenter; Martin Davis, laborer; 
Ransom Demond, farmer ; David Donley, weaver ; Charles 
Deremer, laborer, single; Samuel Elston, farmer ; Solomon 
Frantz, farmer ; Jacob Frantz, farmer, half saw-mill ; David 



80 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

Weston, half saw-mill (this was the Weston saw- mill before 
referred to) ; David Frantz, farmer ; David Fulmer, farmer ; 
Charles Ferguson, laborer, single; Anthony Foss, farmer; 
Alexander Ferguson, farmer; Jacob Fisher, farmer, John 
Fisher, laborer ; Joseph Fleet, laborer ; Almon Goss, farmer, 
"money at use"; Samuel Gould, farmer; David Gibbs, 
farmer; William H. Goble, carpenter; Samuel Honeywell, 
farmer; Abram Hughey, cooper; N. S. Honeywell, farmer, 
"money at use" ; Thomas Honeywell, laborer ; Daniel D. 
Honeywell, farmer, single; Elijah Harris, laborer, saw-mill 
(first time for saw-mill) ; David Holcomb, farmer ; Joseph 
Hoover, shoemaker; William Honeywell, farmer; A. S. 
Honeywell, 2d, shoemaker, single; Joseph Honeywell, farm- 
er ; Thomas Hoover, laborer; Philip Hoover, laborer; C. C. 
Honeywell, farmer; James Huston, farmer; Charles Huston, 
farmer, single ; William C. Hagerman, tailor ; Richard Hon- 
eywell, farmer ; Isaac Honeywell, farmer; Levi Hoyt, farmer, 
saw-mill ; Isaac Hervey, laborer, shingle maker; Abram Hoo- 
ver, laborer; A. S. Honeywell, farmer; Jonathan Husted, 
farmer; John J. King, farmer; Wesley Kunkle and William 
Salmon, saw-mill; John H. Low, laborer; Peter Lewis, 
laborer ; James M. Lord, carpenter ; George C. Lord, farm- 
er ; Michael Lee, farmer ; William Montanye, farmer ; Owen 
Martin, mason ; Isaac Montanye, farmer, single ; Margaret 
Montanye, widow ; Charles Montanye, farmer, single ; San- 
ford Moore, farmer; Joseph Matthews, laborer; Ruben 
MuUison, farmer; William Mullison, farmer; Isaac Nulton, 
farmer ; Stephen Northrup, shoemaker ; Zachariah Neeley, 
farmer, tanner; Thomas Henry Nutt, doctor (first doctor); 
Henry Overton, farmer ; Leonard Oakley, laborer ; William 
Perrigo, laborer ; George Puterbaugh, laborer ; Andrew 
Puterbaugh, laborer ; Peter B. Roushey, tailor ; Jonathan 
Rogers, laborer ; Abram Ryman, farmer ; Jacob Rice, 2d, 
farmer, saw mill ; Christian Rice, farmer ; Enoch Reiley, 
laborer; Stephen Reiley, laborer, single ; Richard Ryman, 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 8 1 

sawyer, saw mill, single ; William Reiley, laborer ; William 
C. Roushey, farmer; Deming Spencer, farmer, "money at 
use" ; Erastus Shaver, laborer, single ; Israel Stewart, labor- 
er; John Sigler, farmer; Nathaniel Schooley, laborer; Daniel 
Spencer, farmer; William Shaver, justice of the peace, 
"money at use" ; William Shniven, laborer ; John P. Shaver, 
laborer ; Joseph Shaver, farmer ; Peter Shaver, carpenter ; 
Charles Shaver, carpenter, single ; Asa W. Shaver, farmer ; 
James Simmers, laborer ; Peter Stetler, farmer ; Simeon 
Spencer, farmer ; Miles Spencer, farmer ; William Snyder, 
farmer ; Manning Snyder, farmer, carpenter ; John Snyder, 
farmer, saw mill ; Christopher Snyder, farmer ; William 
Smith, blacksmith ; John Smith, laborer ; Simon P. Sites, 
laborer; Thomas Tuttle, farmer; Chance Terry, laborer; 
John Thorn, Jr., laborer, single man ; George Thorn, labor- 
er; John Urtz, mason; Jesse Vausteemburgh, carpenter; 
Elisha H. Venning, farmer; Charles Vanwinkle, shoemaker; 
John Waldon, shoemaker ; Heirs of John Wilson, deceased; 
William Wilson, farmer; Peter Wilson, laborer; John Wea- 
ver, mason ; David Westover, laborer ; Levi Wheeler, la- 
borer; Joseph Wright, laborer; John Wright, laborer, sin- 
gle : George Wright, laborer, single ; Edward Williams, 
cooper : Joseph Wordon, farmer, single ; John Wordon, 
farmer; Samuel Worden, farmer; Abram Worden, farmer ; 
David Weaver, laborer, single ; Henry Weaver, mason ; Jo- 
seph Orr, tavern keeper ; Miles C. Orr, ex-tavern keeper ; 
Philip Kunkle, f u'mer ; Phineas N. Foster, farmer ; Abram 
Vanscoy, farmer ; Orlando T. Hunt, laborer, single ; Sam- 
uel Myers, laborer, single ; Brasson Willis, shoemaker ; 
William B. Taylor, Jesse Fosbinder, Hitchcock and Church, 
Joseph Boon. Total 173. 

1844-1845. Isaac Whipple appears as doctor (second 
one), and Jonathan Husted gets a pleasure carriage (second 
one in township). 

1 845- 1 846. William W. Kirkendall dies. Jesse Kreid- 



82 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

ler starts blacksmith shop near Goss or Corner School 
House, afterwards continued by his son, Abe Kreidler, who 
was accidentally shot by William C. Smith about 1856, and 
killed. 

Joseph Orr justice of the peace this year. Elijah Harris 
starts the first lath mill in Dallas township (near present 
"Ryman's Pond"), Abram Ryman gets a pleasure carriage 
(the third one in the township). John Rainow moves on 
John Honeywell farm (lot four in certified Bedford, where 
John Welch now lives). Christopher Eypher, wheelwright, 
moves into township. 

1 846-1 847. George Cairl starts a tannery at Green woods 
near Kunkle. Anthony Peche, laborer, moves into town- 
ship, 

1 847-1 848. John Bulford starts his blacksmith shop in 
village of McClellonsville. Miner Fuller builds saw mill on 
Toby's Creek one-half mile above Jude Baldwin's mill, near 
Lehman township line. Almon Goss made postmaster. 
Henry Hancock and Joseph Shaver, as Hancock & Co., go 
into lumber business at Jude Baldwin mill. 

1 848- 1 849. A. L. Warring starts a hotel or tavern, 
which continues but a short time. 

1849-1850. Jacob Rice appears first time as merchant. 
Albert L. Warring, tavern keeper. John Thorn makes ap- 
plication for hotel license. 

LIST OF UNSEATED LANDS, 185O. 
No. of acres. Warrantee name of owners. 

66 Abiel Abbott. 

100 ...... Nancy Diley. 

719 Simon, Jacob, Aaron and James Dunn. 

250 Anthony Dunn. 

85 Patrick Moore. 

125 John Opp, owner. 

186 Heirs of Joseph Shotwell. 

90 Heirs of T. B. Worthington. 

50 Chester Butler. 

50 Lawrence Erb. 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 83 

STORES, FOOD, CLOTHING, ETC. 

After the abandonment and removal of the rolHng mill 
from South Wilkes-Barre, about the year 1844, the firm of 
Stetler & Slyker, which had been keeping a general mer- 
chandise store there, stopped business and removed their 
remaining stock of goods out to McLellonsville. Stephen 
Slyker, one of the partners, who is still living (1886), at 
South Wilkes-Barre, went out with the goods to close them 
out. There was then a wagonmaker's shop owned by one 
Jerome B. Blakeslee, standing on the southeastern bank of 
Toby's Creek, where the present store of Ira D. Shaver, in 
Dallas borough, now stands. Slyker secured this shop, put 
in shelves and a counter, and otherwise fitted it for use as a 
store, and moved in with his stock of goods. This was the 
first store started within the present territory of Dallas 
township. Before this time, about the year, 1840, Almon 
Goss kept a few goods at his house near the Goss or Corner 
School House, just north of McLellonsville, from which he 
supplied his men and others who wanted to buy ; but the 
Slyker store was the first real store in a separate building 
devoted exclusively to the business. 

My father, Abram Ryman, also for many years kept a 
few goods in his house at the homestead farm, between 
Dallas and Huntsville, to accommodate his employees and 
others who wished to buy. He also began along in the 
forties. He went once or twice a year to Philadelphia, and 
bought a few staple articles. Some dry goods of the com- 
monest and most substantial kind were kept in the "spare 
room" laid out on a board, which rested on two or three 
chairs. Molasses, pork and damp goods of that class were 
kept in the cellar. Sugar, tea, coffee and that class of grocer- 
ies were kept up stairs over the kitchen in a large room next 
to the roof where we boys and sometimes the hired men 
slept. Many times were we wakened after going to bed by 



84 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

my father coming up stairs with some late customer to weigh 
out some coffee or sugar or the like. His counter in that 
room was a large table. Just over the table, suspended 
from a rafter, was a pair of balancing scales. Weights were 
put in either side, and the article to be weighed was put in 
the other side. My father kept store in this way until 
about the year 1856, when he erected a separate building 
for it near the road. After ten or eleven years he erected 
another store down in the village of Dallas, which is still 
in use by the firm of A. Ryman & Sons. 

The Slyker store did not remain long in McLellonsville. 
About 1846 Samuel Lynch, Esq., now of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 
leased the Slyker building, and started a branch to his 
Wilkes-Barre store, and thus conducted business there for 
about two years. 

About the same time that Lynch's store was started (Mr. 
Lynch thinks a little before) Henry Hancock came up from 
Kingston and opened a store in the front part of the house 
where J. J. Bulford now lives (ground since occupied by 
Lehigh Valley Railroad and station). Bulford lived in the 
back part of the house at the same time. Lynch abandoned 
his Dallas store soon afterwards, and Hancock moved his 
store to Huntsville, where he continued in business until 
just prior to the war. When the war broke out his sympa- 
thies were with the South, and, not wishing to shirk any 
duty toward the Southern cause, he went South and joined 
the Confederate army. He was afterwards taken prisoner, 
and died during his confinement in one of the Western 
prisons. 

About the year 1848 Jacob Rice, 2d, of Dallas, and Dr. 
James A. Lewis, of Trucksville, formed a copartnership un- 
der the firm name of Rice & Lewis, and continued business 
in the Slyker building (which Mr. Rice had in the mean- 
time purchased) as successors to Mr. Lynch. Dr. Lewis 
left the firm in 1841, and the firm of Rice & Kirkcndall 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 85 

soon followed, with George W. Kirkendall, deceased, late 
of Wilkes-Barre, as the junior partner. The successions in 
that store since then have been Rice & Sons, John J. Whit- 
ney, Whitney & Shaver, Brown & Henry, Smith & Garre- 
han, Garrehan & Son, and now Ira D. Shaver. The old store 
building burned down about 1861, while occupied by Brown 
& Henry, but was immediately rebuilt by Whitney & Shaver. 

Another store was started at McLellonsville quite early 
in the fifties by Charles Smith, now of Trucksville, in a 
store building which until quite recently stood on the ground 
now occupied by Dr. C. A. Spencer's residence. Still an- 
other store was started there about the same time as the 
Smith store, on the corner where now stands the residence 
of Chester White. It was more of a "fluid" grocery store 
where oysters, cider and even stronger drinks could be had. 
The Smith store building was used for like purposes after 
Smith went away. 

The best of these first stores in Dallas would hardly be 
dignified by that name now. Only a few necessaries were 
kept in any of them, and "necessaries" then had a much 
scantier meaning than now. A few of the commonest and 
cheapest cotton cloths were kept in stock ; the woolen goods 
used for winter wear, for both men and women, were all 
homespun. It took many years for the storekeepers to con- 
vince the farmers that they could buy heavy clothes of part 
wool and part cotton that would be as durable and cheaper 
than the all wool homespun. The time spent on the latter 
was counted as nothing, and the argument failed. A few 
other goods of kinds in daily use, such as coffee, tea, sugar, 
molasses, tobacco, powder, shot and flints and rum were of 
course necessary to any complete store. Hunting materials 
and supplies were in great demand. A hunter's outfit at 
that time was proverbially "a quarter of powder, a pound of 
shot, a pint of rum and a flint." Tobacco was always in 
demand. The flint was the box of matches of that day. 



86 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

Before the invention of the lucifer match, the matter of keep- 
ing fire in a house, especially in winter time, was one of ex- 
treme importance, in that sparsely settled country. Every 
one burned wood then, about there, and fire was kept over 
night by covering a few "live coals" with ashes in the fire- 
place. Sometimes this failed, and then, if no flint and punk 
were at hand, some member of the family had to go to the 
nearest neighbor, probably a mile or more away, and bring 
fire. It is not difficult to imagine their sufferings during 
the winters in this respect. Had food, clothing and other 
things been plenty and good, this hardship could have been 
better endured ; but they were not, and worst of all, there 
were almost no means of procuring theuL There was an 
abundance of game and fish for a time, but they did not 
satisfy a civilized people. Buckwheat was early introduced 
in Dallas, and was afterwards so extensively raised there 
that the expression "Buckwheat-Dallas" was frequently 
used by way of marking this fact in connection with the 
name. It is a summer grain and quick to mature. In 
ninety days from the day when the crop is sowed it can be 
grown, matured, gathered, ground and served on the table 
as food, or, as has been often remarked, just in time to meet 
a three months' note in bank. Another practical benefit 
from raising this grain was that, in gathering it, a large 
quantity of it shook off and was scattered over the fields. 
This afforded a most attractive pigeon food, and during the 
fall and spring seasons, and often during much of the win- 
ter, pigeons would flock in countless numbers all over that 
country. They came in such quantities that it would be 
difficult to exaggerate their numbers. When a boy I used 
to see flocks that extended as far as the eye could reach, 
from end to end, and these long strings or waves of 
birds would pass over so closely following each other that 
sometimes two or three flocks could be seen at once, and 
some days they were almost constantly flying over, and the 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 8/ 

noise of their wings was not unlike the sound of a high wind 
blowing through a pine woods. They cast a shadow as they 
passed over almost like a heavy cloud. Often they flew 
so low as to be easily reached with an ordinary shot gun. 
The skilled way of capturing them in large quantities, how- 
ever, was with a net. William, or Daddy Emmons was a 
famous pigeon trapper as well as fisherman. He used de- 
coy pigeons. They were blind pigeons tied to the ground 
at some desired spot, and when they heard the noise of 
large flocks flying overhead, they would flap their wings as 
if to fly away. Attracted by this the flock would come 
down and settle near the decoys, where plenty of buck- 
wheat was always to be found. When a sufficient number 
had settled and collected on the right spot, Mr. Emmons, 
who was concealed in a bush or bough house near by, 
would spring his net over them quickly and fasten them 
within. After properly securing the net, the work of killing 
them began. It was done in an instant by crushing their 
heads between the thumb and fingers. Hundreds were 
often caught and killed in this way at one spring of the net. 
Pigeons were so plenty that some hunters cut off" and saved 
the breast only, and threw the balance away. Pigeon trap- 
ping in Dallas twenty-five and thirty years ago was almost 
if not quite a parallel with the great shad fishing days in 
the Susquehanna. 

On the morning of September 5th, 1887, while walking 
along the roadside in Dallas borough, "Daddy Emmons" 
was knocked down by a wagon loaded with hay, through 
some carelessness of the driver coming from behind. Daddy 
Emmons was pushed off the lower bank of the roadside, a 
broken thigh was the result, and he died from the shock at 
the house of his daughter, Mrs. Davis, in Dallas village, 
within a few days, at the age of ninety-two years. I quote 
the following tribute to his memory, written soon after his 
death, by Hon. Caleb E. Wright, formerly of the Luzerne bar : 



88 dallas township, pa. 

Daddy Emmons. 

"I never seethe name of this harmless and gentle spirited man, or 
hear it pronounced, but with reverential emotion. Many years have 
passed since it was first my pleasure to become associated with him in 
the mystic art of capturing fish — an occupation that everybody knows 
is, and always has been, with all men, one of the characteristics of 
genius. 

"The first time I met this ancient fisherman was at Harvey's Lake. 
There he had his summer cabin, invited to it by the genial warmth that 
lured also the osprey and the kingfisher, and like them devoting him- 
self to the one occupation. He had his boat, his bait net, and all his 
tools of trade at hand ; and with the morning dawn was up and 
abroad upon the waters. 

"At our first interview I thought I discovered his merit; and then 
and there we grew into bonds of affinity. On the little inland sea I 
was constrained to acknowledge his superior sleight of hand, and often 
wondered where such matchless skill in capturing pickerel and catfish 
could have found growth. Rut when on the bold stream issuing 
from the density of the Sullivan county woods, armed with the coach- 
man or yellow-sally, my companion laid down his arms at my feet. 
The most cautious and alert of untamed things, the trout, challenges 
a prowess not thrust promiscuously upon the sons of men. It is a 
special gift. 

"With every yard square of that noble sheet of water, largest of Penn- 
sylvania lakes. Daddy Emmons was familiar. The places where, at 
different times of the day, bait shiners could be scooped up with his 
net, and at what spots, at different hours, lay the largest of the fish he 
sought. 

"A man may be good on water without much knowledge of wood- 
craft. This was once demonstrated when the old fisherman under- 
took to guide George Lear, of the Bucks county bar, and myself from 
the north shore of the lake to Beaver Run. We wished to reach the 
run at the foot of the great meadow. It was once a meadow, but of 
late years an inextricable confusion of alders, through which the stream 
found its way, a mile or so in extent. Instead of reaching it below 
the jungle, our conductor brought us in above. Our Bucks county 
friend started in first. A short distance brought him to the alders. 
We found his track, where he had penetrated the tangled under- 
growth, but that was all. The future Attorney General of the Com- 
monwealth was lost. In hunting for him, having wound up our lines, 
we got lost too. I don't know how many hours we wandered in the 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 89 

dismal slough, chiefly in circles, but Squire Kocher, hunting his cat- 
tle, found and rescued us. Mr. Lear, getting out upon a log road, 
followed it to the lake, and a lad of Judge Barnum's rowed him across 
to the hotel. 

"There was a pleasing simplicity and honest candor in this old nav- 
igator of the lake that commended him to the regard of men far above 
him in social rank. Judge Paxson of our Supreme Bench, for many 
years a summer resident of the celebrated resort, spent his days in 
company of Daddy Emmons. Their communion was a pleasant thing 
to behold, and the disdnguished jurist, in common with many others, 
will ever bear a kindly remembrance of this old piscatorial veteran, 
deploring the sad catastrophe that hastened his descent to the tomb." 



Death of Daddy Emmons. 

THE CELEBRATED OLD FISHERMAN PASSES AWAY AT THE AGE OF NINETY-TWO. 

"At half-past eight o'clock Wednesday morning the celebrated Har- 
vey's Lake fisherman, William, better known as "Daddy," Emmons, 
passed to his eternal rest. Two weeks ago, as then stated in this pa- 
per, he was knocked down and badly injured by a hay wagon, near 
Dallas, his thigh being broken. From this shock he never rallied. 
His death occurred at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Davis, in Dallas, 
who during his last days administered to his every want, and did 
everything that a loving heart and willing hands could suggest and do 
to make him comfortable. 

"Daddy Emmons went to Harvey's Lake from New Jersey about 
thirty-five years ago, and ever since has been a prominent character 
at that favorite resort. Up to about two years ago he lived in a hut 
in a copse of woods on the banks of the lake, and was looked upon as 
the ideal fisherman of the neighborhood. He knew just where the 
finny tribe was most numerous, and seldom failed to make a catch 
when a proper effort was put forth. He taught many of the promi- 
nent men of his day the art of angling, among his pupils being the 
late Judge Paxson, of Philadelphia. Since leaving the lake he has 
resided with his daughter, Mrs. Davis, from whose home the funeral 
will occur to-morrow." — Leader, Sept. ij, iSSj . 

As the forests were cleared away and the country became 
more thickly settled the pigeons grew timid and gradually 
ceased to return in such large flocks. In later years Daddy 
Emmons turned his attention more to fishing, at which he 



90 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

was as successful as in trapping pigeons. His home was at 
Dallas, but early in each returning spring he went to Har- 
vey's Lake and took possession of his cabin, which stood 
at the edge of a little grove near the eastern end of the old 
bridge at the southeastern inlet, and there lived alone, 
spending his whole time at fishing. He made a business of 
it, and for many years, until his strength failed on account 
of his age, he succeeded in getting a living out of it. His 
honest old face was for many years associated with the 
memory of Harvey's Lake, and with many of us it will 
never be forgotten. Harvey's Lake at one time abounded 
in speckled trout, but the artificial introduction of other fish 
has exterminated the trout. Game of every kind was also 
very abundant about there. It was a famous hunting and 
fishing ground. Ephraim King once imformed me that he 
had killed over a hundred deer in and about Harvey's Lake. 
Hunting dogs were seldom needed in his best hunting days, 
fifty to seventy years ago. The deer were oftenest killed by 
rowing quietly up to them with a light in the boat while they 
were feeding in the shore grass or drinking just at the edge 
of the water. The torch dazed them, and its reflection in 
their bright eyes made a sure mark for the hunter. Bears 
and wolves ceased to be a terror before the first half of this 
century was ended, but they were seen occasionally in and 
about Dallas and Lake township at a later date. Watch 
dogs were employed at one time to protect the sheep from 
attacks by wolves, but the dogs had to be of such a fero- 
cious kind that it sometimes became a question as to which 
were the more destructive in the sheepfold, and many good 
watch dogs had to be killed for this reason. The need of 
watch dogs for that purpose ended in Dallas years ago — 
about 1855. 

Fox hunting was rare sport at one time in Dallas, and 
during the winter season was extensively indulged in. For 
this huntin<j fox hounds were used. The hunters were 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 9 1 

stationed about on the hills where the "runaways" were 
supposed to be, and each had his shot at the fox as it was 
driven by in front of the hounds. The fox skin brought a 
little money in at the furriers, and the county paid a small 
bounty, so that there was a slight remuneration from this 
sport. Catamounts and wildcats were often seen and killed 
by the earlier inhabitants of Dallas, There were also a few 
rattlesnakes and other poisonous reptiles found there by 
the earlier settlers, but all of these are gone now from Dai- 
las township. 

KUNKLE. 

The village or post-office of Kunkle was settled about 
1836 and was named in honor of Wesley and Conrad Kun- 
kle. Wesley Kunkle settled and erected a saw-mill near there 
about 1840; Conrad did not go there until about twelve 
years later. The country round about Kunkle was and 
still is generally known as the "Green Woods," and I find 
record that it was so called as far back as 1820. The rea- 
son for it is apparent when we recall the fact that all that 
region was originally almost entirely covered with hemlock 
and other evergreen trees. The hemlock was abundant and 
of most excellent quality. On account of its superiority 
the hemlock grown on the west side of the Susquehanna 
River in this vicinity commands a considerably larger price 
than that grown the opposite side. This is a fact well known 
to dealers in lumber, but not, it is believed, by the unini- 
tiated. About the year 1840 George Cairl (?), in order to 
utilize the hemlock bark in that vicinty, established a tan- 
nery on the hill just east of present Kunkle village. This 
was the second tannery established in Dallas township, the 
first being that established two or three years earlier by 
Zachariah Neely in West Dallas near the Lehmon township 
line, on the road leading from McLellonsville to Harvey's 
Lake, The Cairl tannery was superseded by a large steam 



92 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA, 

tannery erected about 1855 by Edward Marsh, an enter- 
prising young New Yorker. This steam tannery was burned 
several years ago, and the present one was erected after the 
model and upon the same ground of the former one. 

Conrad and Wesley Kunkle were men of considerable 
prominence in the community where they lived. Each had 
a power of making and retaining extensive acquaintances 
and friendships. Conrad was for many years Justice of the 
Peace in Dallas township, and was also one of the two first 
school directors appointed by the court for Dallas township 
in the year 1834 under the provisions of the new school 
law, then for the first time put in force. Wesley was elected 
to the office of Recorder of Deeds in Luzerne county in the 
fall of i860, and served one term. Intimately connected 
with the early settlement of the Green Woods country at 
Kunkle was also William Wheeler Kirkendall, father of 
George W., Ira M. and William P. Kirkendall, now of the 
city of Wilkes-Barre. Wheeler Kirkendall, as he was fa- 
miliarly called, came from New Jersey, and was a carpenter, 
also a carder, fuller and clothes dresser by trade, and it was 
largely through his aid that the first carding and fulling 
mill was undertaken and built by Jacob Rice, ist, in the 
village of Trucksville. He was a man of kindly nature and 
abounded in good cheer. A harmless joke was never any less 
enjoyable to him because it happened to be at his expense. 
He used to tell of and heartly laugh at an incident which oc- 
curred while he was engaged at the work of constructing 
the carding and fulling mill at Trucksville, above referred 
to. A neighbor of his from Dallas, somewhat noted for his 
large stories as well as his fondness for practical fun, ap- 
peared coming down the road towards Kingston one morn- 
ing in great haste. "Hold on, Uncle Abe," called Kirken- 
dall as he passed, "what's your hurry ? Can't you stop and 
tell us a good big lie this morning?" Quick as thought, 
and without halting or turning about, Uncle Abe shouted 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 93 

back that he had no time, that Philip Kunkle had just fallen 
from an apple tree and broken a leg, and he was going to 
Wilkes-Barre for a doctor. Philip Kunkle was the father 
of Wesley and Conrad Kunkle, as well as the step-father of 
Wheeler Kirkendall, and was also a most highly esteemed 
citizen of Dallas, to whom, on account of his advanced 
years, such an accident was likely to bring most painful if 
not fatal consequences. Under these circumstances such an 
announcement was serious to Wheeler Kirkendall. Before 
he had time to revive after the first shock and recover his 
wits, Uncle Abe was out of sight and hearing. The sus- 
pense was unbearable, and no time was lost in starting for 
the scene of the accident, which was at least four miles 
away by the nearest route. There being no horses or con- 
veyances at hand, the journey had to be made on foot. This 
was done in all possible haste, and after two hours of hard 
walking, up hill and down, over the roughest of roads, Mr. 
Kirkendall arrived, much fatigued, at his journey's end, only 
to find Mr. Kunkle enjoying his usual health, and to dis- 
cover that Uncle Abe had literally complied with his re- 
quest and told a good big lie, 

Levi Hoyt, formerly of Kingston, was also one of the 
first to locate at Kunkle. He lived there and operated with 
the saw-mill previously mentioned as early as 1838, but I 
am unable to get very positive data in relation to his trans- 
actions. An extensive business was at one time carried on 
at Kunkle in the manufacture of long oars for small whale 
boats. The superior quality of white ash which grew there 
was specially adapted to this use. For many years after 
the first settlements in Kunkle village the nearest school- 
house was by the roadside on the divide known as "Chest- 
nut Hill," or "Brace Hill," about one and a half miles south- 
east of the present village. About the year 1858 a new red 
school-house was erected within the village limits. Soon 
after this improvement was made, it was proposed one day 



94 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

to Start a Sunday-school also in the same building. There 
being no church in the place, this proposition grew in favor 
and soon ripened into a fact. On the day fixed for the open- 
ing a large crowd was assembled, so that there was hardly 
room to accommodated the parents and children who had 
come from every direction to join the Sunday-school. Great 
pains had been taken to have everything in readiness for 
the opening day, but in spite of all, one serious omission 
was at the last moment discovered. No provision had been 
made for the opening prayer. There were two or three 
residents of the village who had experienced religion in the 
Methodist way, and were to a limited degree pious, but they 
did not feel competent to undertake such an important 
prayer as this one. The upshot of it all was that everything 
had to be suspended and the people kept waiting while some 
one went three miles across country through the woods and 
brought a man who knew how to make such a prayer. 
From that beginning a large and prosperous Sunday-school 
has grown up and become permanently established. 

The same enterprising citizen who organized and started 
the first Sunday-school, famed for his abounding good na- 
ture, generosity and forwardness in starting and promoting 
new and useful operations for the interest and welfare of the 
community, is also noted for the variety of his trades and 
accomplishments. He was born to handle skillfully tools 
of all trades. He practiced a little in law and medicine, and in 
music he was at home with almost any instrument. After the 
late war, when the 30th of May was first set apart and made a 
holiday for the decoration of the graves of the soldier dead, 
he was the first to improvise a band of drums and fifes to take 
part in the ceremony of visiting and decorating the various 
graves in the graveyards in and about Dallas. The pro- 
gram of this first decoration day at Dallas was to visit each 
soldier's grave and lay upon it a wreath of flowers ; and as 
the procession marched from one grave to another, music 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 95 

of the funereal kind was furnished by this band. There 
were several graveyards and a considerable number of 
graves in each to be visited, while the number of tunes suit- 
able for such an occasion in the repertory of this newlj' or- 
ganized band was very limited, and in visiting so many 
graves there was of course much repetition, so that by night, 
the services having lasted most of the day, this band, and 
especially its organizer and leader, were very tired of those 
particular pieces. Finally the last grave had been decorated 
and the procession was headed for home. The programme 
called for more music, but to repeat again any of those 
psalm tunes seemed unbearable to all. With a look almost 
of despair, one of the members ventured to ask of the leader, 

" What shall we play now ?" " O it, anything — the 

'Girl I left behind me,' " was the reply. The relief was so 
great that all marched away heartily enjoying the change, 
while the bluntness and profanity of the reply and the amus- 
ing yet literal inappropriateness of the music were for the 
moment unnoticed ; though the afterthought of the situation 
has since furnished much amusement to many who were 
present on that occasion. 

In the practice of medicine our own Sunday-school and 
band organizer has also won some laurels. It is told 
of him that on one occasion a distinguished and skillful 
practitioner of the same profession, being overcome with 
heat or from some other cause, was suddenly prostrated and 
became unconscious in the road near the house of our hero. 
W^ith quick presence of mind, our hero had the patient re- 
moved to his house near by and ordered the two men whom 
he had called as assistants to apply cold water bandages to 
the head, while he took down his herb doctor book, adjusted 
his spectacles, and began licking his thumb and with it turn- 
ing the leaves one by one and carefully scanning each page, 
while his thumb was resting against or near his protruding 
tongue so that it might be properly dampened on the instant 



g6 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

that the next leaf was to be thumbed over. After nearly an 
hour thus doubled over this volume of medical lore, a cry- 
broke out : " , boys, I've found it ; we've got to sweat 

him ! One of you go for a pound of ground mustard while I 
steam some hemlock boughs." Quicker than I can write it, 
one of the attendants darted out to the store near by, but 
in his haste he asked for and procured a pound package of 
of ginger instead of mustard. In the excitement and hurry, 
however, no one discovered the mistake, and soon the pa- 
tient was nicely encased in a covering of ginger plasters, 
steaming hot hemlock boughs, etc. The effect was all that 
was desired — it woke up the patient. He was quite restored 
and still lives to tell the tale — if he would. 

SCHOOLS. 

One of the first schools — probably the first — taught in 
Dallas, was in an old barn near the residence of Philip 
Kunkle, on lot 53 of certified Bedford, near central line. 
The date of opening this school I cannot obtain with any 
degree of certainty, nor can I learn the name of the teacher, 
though there are two or three people still living who at- 
tended and well remember the school. The date was prob- 
ably about 1813 or 1814, and the teacher was either Mr. 

Bell or Joseph Sweazy. My informants do not agree 

on this point. It seems to be undisputed, however, that 
both of these taught private schools in barns and private 
houses of that neighborhood before the log school-house 
was erected in 18 16. What became of Bell I cannot learn. 
Joseph Sweazy remained in Dallas until about the year 1843, 
when he sold his farm and moved down to Wilkes-Barre. 
He bought, and for several years owned a considerable tract 
of land between Ross and South streets through which 
Franklin street has since been opened. The three old 
houses still standing (1886) on northeasterly side of Ross 
Street and next South, east of Wright street, now owned by 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 97 

estate of Isaac S. Osterhout, were erected by him. Joseph 
Sweazy was a devout Methodist, and an educated man. He 
was of too fine a grain to enjoy the rough life and experi- 
ences of that time in Dallas. His last years were pitiable 
in the extreme. The death of his wife and a stroke of par- 
alysis coming nearly together in his advanced years caused 
sorrows more than he could stand. His religious medita- 
tions became nearly or quite an insanity. At last he lost 
the power of speech and began to write down his religious 
thoughts. In the year 1848, just prior to his death, he sent 
out a written appeal to the public as follows : "By reason 
of palsy I am rendered speechless and my right hand and 
all my right side weak and almost helpless, so much so that 
I cannot labor. Besides I have lost my dear companion 
with a lingering consumption, which, for nursing, medicine 
and necessaries (for she ate well most of the time) involved 
me in debt to the amount of four hundred and six dollars, 
and, as I have no means to pay this honest debt, and cannot 
work, I have written a book which I want to get printed and 
bound and sold in order to pay what I can of this honest 
debt. The book is a religious book and will contain per- 
haps two hundred octavo pages, and be worth perhaps fifty 
cents. It is my earnest desire that it may be a blessing to 
my fellow men in whose hands it may fall, and, if it is, I 
would lie at the feet of Jehovah and give Him the praise, 
for it is His due. I hope each gentleman and kind hearted 
lady will give what money he can spare to help to get the 
books printed and bound, and the Lord will bless them. 
Any sum will be received with a low bow, which is my 
sincere thanks. He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the 
Lord, and He will repay it again. O, give relief and heaven 
will bless your store. Your unworthy dust and needy pe- 
titioner. — Thomas Sweazy." 

Mr. Sweazy died soon after, and the book, I am told, was 
never printed, though many names were signed and money 



9^ DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

paid for the book. Among the subscribers for this book 
were the names of nearly all the active and leading business 
men of Wilkes-Barre and vicinity of that time ( 1 848). 

Soon after the passage of the law (1834) providing for the 
establishment of free schools, the second school-house in 
Dallas township was built upon lands of Richard Honeywell 
about three-fourths of a mile north of McLellonsville, where 
the present school-house now stands, near the residence of 
William K. Goss. Another school-house was erected in 
Dallas about the same date near the Frantz saw-mill, before 
mentioned, which is still known as the Frantz school-house. 
Still another school-house was erected about the same time 
on the divide known as Chestnut Hill or Brace Hill, and 
near the road leading from Dallas borough to Kunkle. 
That was known as the Chestnut Hill or Brace Hill school 
house, but was abandoned twenty odd years ago. 

These buildings supplied the needs of Dallas township 
for many years. The West Dallas school-house, near the 
residence of William C. Roushev, the Demond school-house, 
near late residence of Ransom Demond, near headwaters of 
northernmost fork of Toby's Creek, the Shaver school-house 
in "Shaverton," on the lower end of lot five of certified Bed- 
ford next to Kingston township line, and the Hunter school- 
house, erected on western land of lot six of certified Bed- 
ford, near late residence of Edward Hunter, and the Kunkle 
school-house at the village of Kunkle, were erected later, 
in about the order named, as there seemed to be demand 
for them. They were all small, one-room buildings, and the 
schools kept in them were of the crudest kind. Classes in 
"A, B, C's," two or three classes in spelling, as many classes 
in reading, one or two classes in arithmetic, possibly a class 
in grammar, and another in geography, were all called to 
the centre of the room to recite, usually twice a day. When 
all had recited once and a little time had been given to exer- 
cise in writing, school was let out for noon. The afternoon was 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA, 90 

nearly or quite a repetition of the forenoon. No one could 
well study during school hours, and few, if any, would study 
out of school hours. Pupils went to school in that way 
from month to month and year to year, and a few of them 
from necessity rubbed off a little information, and were 
turned away finished to the satisfaction of many of the pa- 
rents. No thoughts of a higher education than these rudi- 
ments, thus worn off and ground in, were entertained ex- 
cept by a very few, and with fewer still was there any desire 
for it. In time teaching of this kind began to be looked 
upon as mere physical labor which one person could per- 
form with about the same skill as another. A lady teacher 
was all that was desired for the summer terms, because then 
the big boys were working on the farms, and she was capa- 
ble of managing the girls and small boys ; but for the win- 
ter terms, when the farmer boys were allowed to go again, 
a man teacher was required, and a good, able-bodied one 
too, in order to do the flogging which was indispensible. 
With such ideas prevailing, it is not strange that in hiring a 
teacher the only question was how cheap it could be done. 
Skilled teachers, who were worth and could command 
good salaries where good schools were appreciated, many of 
them refused to compete in this low bidding and disap- 
peared. There were, of course, notable exceptions to this 
rule. Dallas had some excellent teachers, and passed 
through several periods that in a small way might be termed 
periods of the Revival of Learning. With what pleasure 
many of us now recall the school days in Dallas under the 
teaching of John Whitney — a gentle, kind, brave and good 
man, beloved by all, but most by those who knew him best. 
He came to Dallas about 1856-7, and opened a general 
merchandise store upon the spot where the store of Ira D. 
Shaver now stands. He continued in the mercantile busi- 
ness but a short time, however, when he leased his store 
building and entered into the business of teaching, which 



100 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

seemed more congenial to his tastes. He followed teaching 
until the breaking out of the great Oivil War of 1861. At 
the first sound of the alarm he dropped everything, and was 
among the earliest volunteers in the three months' service. 
When that term was ended he renewed his enlistment, and 
remained actively in the service wherever duty called. 

We who remember him so affectionately as our teacher, 
read with fearful solicitude the death roll after each great 
battle in which he was likely to be engaged. The dreaded 
messenger came at last; Whitney had been shot and killed, 
and in a few days his body was brought home to be buried. 

His school teaching at Dallas was all at the little red 
school-house which stood on the same grounds where the 
first log school-house of Dallas township, before mentioned, 
had stood. Whitney began with a night school, and had a 
few subscription pupils who were asked to come in and 
learn geography by singing it. He had a fine set of maps 
of the world on a large scale, such as had never before been 
seen there. To these was added a familiar knowledge and un- 
bounded zeal on the part of the instructor. The result was 
marvelous. His class soon sang through the geography of 
the whole world to the tune of Yankee Doodle, after which 
the multiplication table was taken up and learned by many 
of us to the same music. This success was to Whitney but 
the sharpening of desire to do more. His class had learned 
more in the few short weeks of close application under his 
drilling than ever before in many times the same period, 
and they were all willing supporters of any plan Whitney 
had to offer. He at once proposed to the school directors 
to remodel the interior and seating arrangement of the 
school-house at his own expense and take charge of the 
school under certain conditions. His offer was at once ac- 
cepted. At this Whitney threw off his coat, turned from 
teacher to carpenter, and in an incredibly short time, with 
his own hands, tore out the old long backless benches and 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 10 1 

clumsy desks, which were but little better than racks of 
torture, and made them over into a set of new and graceful 
and easy seats with backs, and so arranged that each pupil, 
large or small, was provided with a comfortable seat and a 
desk in front of him on which he could rest a book. The 
effect of this change was magical. It was now possible to 
have comfort and do a little work during school hours. 
The opening was auspicious. New and improved school 
furniture, a large attendance, affectionate respect for the 
teacher, and a reciprocal love on his part for the pupils, 
were indeed ominous of success, and success certainly fol- 
lowed in the few months that John Whitney remained. His 
teaching and influence gave an impetus to educational de- 
sire that has never been lost. To it more than to anything 
else I attribute the establishment so soon after of the splen- 
did graded school of which Dallas borough now so proudly 
and justly boasts. John Whitney was a frank and genial 
man, of tall, slender and delicate build, scrupulously neat but 
never foppish, gentle as a woman, but every inch of him was 
manly and brave. When duty called he knew no fear. He 
will long be held in affectionate remembrance in Dallas by 
all who knew him. The John Whitney Post of the Grand 
Army of the Republic at Dallas is named in his honor. 

It is difficult to preserve chronological order in a paper 
of this kind without destroying the continuity of many sub- 
jects like the one now in hand. I prefer, therefore, to follow 
the subject of schools to a little later date, because it leads 
to the questions out of which grew organization and setting 
apart of the borough of Dallas from the township. 

As the village of McLellonsville grew and the wealth of 
its inhabitants increased, new ideas began to creep in, and 
some of the parents began to grow dissatisfied with the idea 
that their children should live and grow up without some 
of the advantages of modern civilization. " 'Tis wonderful," 
says Emerson, "how soon a piano gets into a log hut on the 



102 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

frontier. You would think they found it under a pine stunjp. 
With it comes a Latin grammar." A piano and one or two 
organs, a Latin grammar and one or two of the "ologies" 
had found their way out to Dallas early in the sixties, about 
the winter of 1862-3, but there was no one then in the town- 
ship who could teach such branches, and only by sending 
the children away to Kingston and elsewhere, and paying 
their tuition in addition to regular school tax, could such 
instruction be had. A few were able to do this and did do it, 
while the common schools of the township did not get much 
above the curriculum of the famous "three R's." 

Great efforts were made, mostly by a few who lived in 
and near McLellonsville, to improve this state of things and 
establish a graded school, but a jealousy of the village folks 
grew up among those who lived in the remoter portions of 
the township, and with it a combined effort to oppose all 
such schemes. Schools which had been good enough for 
their fathers and grandfathers were good enough for them. 
This was unanswerable argument to many of them, and 
swept away every opposition in the outside districts. Those 
village folks, thought they, must not be indulged in any 
such extravagant and visionary notions. A reformer who 
ventured to offer himself as candidate for school director 
was looked upon as a common enemy by this class, who 
honestly believed that debt and financial ruin were the nat- 
ural and certain sequences of his election, so that such candi- 
dates were almost invariably defeated, or, if by chance elect- 
ed, were left in such minority as to be powerless for good. 
The typical school director was often a man who could nei- 
ther read nor write. Teachers were oftener chosen because of 
the meagerness of the salary which they could be induced or 
forced to accept than for any other merit or qualification. 
A lady school teacher was one time discharged from one 
of the schools there. The real and well known reason was 
because she had the temerity to flog a son of one of the 




John T. Fuller 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. I03 

school directors. Not wishing to give the true cause for 
removing her, this school director put it on the broader 
ground of alleged unfitness. He defended his action as fol- 
lows : "I don't profess to know much about school teaching 
myself," said he, "but I can sometimes spell a simple word 

hke b-o-k book, which is a more than she can do, if I 

do say it myself. Haint that so, Jim ?" 

Bad seemed to grow worse until this state of thing be- 
came unbearable to the villagers in and about McLellons- 
ville. All other efforts having failed, separation began to 
be thought of and discussed. At first it was thought that a 
separate school district might be cut off from the township. 
That plan did not seem to be best just at that time, because 
of the long fight and delay that might ensue if the matter 
was contested, as it was most likely to be. They wanted 
immediate relief in the matter of better school accommoda- 
tions and were determined to have it. The result was the 
organization forthwith of the Dallas High School Associa- 
tion, incorporated February i6, 1878. Within a few weeks 
of its inception this association was fully organized and in- 
corporated. The purchase of grounds and commencement 
of the building, adjoining the site of the first log school in 
Dallas, where was still standing the old "red school-house," 
successor to the log school-house, soon followed, and the 
result was the handsome and commodious school building 
now standing on the hill just south of the village. This 
building was completed in the fall of 1878, and in October of 
that year the first school was opened there with John Ful- 
ler, Esq., late of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., now deceased, as prin- 
cipal. Few men could have satisfied the needs of that place 
at that time so well as did that genial and ever kind hearted 
John Fuller. Fresh from college, where he had graduated 
with distinction, filled with the ambition and zeal of youth, he 
accepted this position as a stepping-stone to the many higher 
things which he had a just right to believe were before him. 



104 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

The excellent school which he established, and the many 
recollections of his genial companionship and splendid man- 
hood will long live as silent tribute to his esteemed memory. 

The following are the names of the original stockholders 
and incorporators of the Dallas High School Association : 
Leonard Machell, James Garrahan, Ira D. Shaver, William 
J. Honeywell, Theodore F. Ryman, John J. Ryman, Ches- 
ter White, Joseph Atherholt, William Snyder, Joseph Sha- 
ver, Jacob Rice, James I. Laing, C. A. Spencer, A. Raub, 
George W. Kirkendall, WilHam P. Kirkendall. 

After the formation of the borough of Dallas, the High 
School Association, by deed of November lo, 1887, con- 
veyed all its property and franchises to the Borough School 
District. The school has since that date been in charge of 
the Borough School District, supported by the public school 
funds. 

From the first opening day this school was very success- 
ful. With two or three exceptions all the children of school 
age in the district attended the new school, and the tax- 
payers asked that the taxes belonging to that district be 
used in support of the new school. This was flatly re- 
fused, and for a long time the public money was practically 
thrown away in keeping open the public school within five 
rods of the new school, where more than ninety per cent, 
of the pupils were paying tuition in addition to the regu- 
lar school tax, for the sake of getting the advantages of the 
best school. This wasteful spite work on the part of the 
township school directors could not long be tolerated, and 
steps were soon taken to revive the old question of a sepa- 
rate organization, either of a school district or of a borough. 
The latter plan was finally adopted. The petition, map and 
other necessary papers were quietly prepared on the 4th day 
of January, A. D. 1879. They were laid before the grand 
inquest of the county. The application was vigorously 
fought on the dog in the manger principle by the outside 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. IO5 

residents of the township, especially by the school directors 
and supervisors, but the opposition was too late. The 
movement had gone too far, and had too much strength and 
had too good a cause to suffer defeat then. The application 
was approved, and the incorporation of the borough was 
completed on the 2ist day of April, A. D. 1879. 

The ill feeling aroused by this struggle and final separa- 
tion of the borough was carried to extreme lengths, and by 
some will be carried to their graves. With many it took 
the form of "boycotting." Some of the people who were 
left out in the township vowed never again to patronize a 
store or business within the limits of the borough. Coop- 
eration stores were established in the township, in which a 
company would form, build a storehouse and stock it with 
the fund raised by contributions from each member. Each 
contributor then had the right to buy his goods at cost from 
this stock. Others vowed never to enter or pass through 
the borough limits again, and would go miles around and 
suffer great inconveniences for the sake of keeping good the 
pledge. Such was the bitterness of the animosity that grew 
from so simple a course. As the years roll by, and we get 
far enough away to see correctly and with an accurate focus, 
the conviction must gradually come to all that it is best as 
it is. There will be more high schools in a few years. "Let 
those who have the laurels now take heed." Those boys 
cannot be held back much longer. 

Before leaving the subject of schools, a line upon the old 
custom of "boarding around," which is now fast disappear- 
ing, may be of interest. This custom was universal at one 
time in Dallas, as in most country districts. Each family 
that sent children to school was expected to board and 
lodge the teacher a proper portion of each term. Word 
was usually sent by one of the children a few days in ad- 
vance notifying the parents when they might expect the 
teacher to board with them. The practice grew from a 



I06 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

necessity in the earlier days when every one was money 
poor, and it was easier to furnish food and lodging than 
the money to pay for them. There were some advantages 
and civilizing effects also in the practice, which should not 
be lost sight of. While the teacher was in the house there 
was usually a little extra cleaning up and putting on of bet- 
ter clothes and manners. The spare room was opened, the 
table was improved, and a general air of trying to be as re- 
spectable as possible pervaded the home. The severity of 
the school room manners was dropped, and teacher, pupil 
and parents seemed to come together with a better under- 
standing of each other. Just how or why it was it is not so 
easy to explain, but the children usually felt that there was 
a certain general reformation and comfort about home, dur- 
ing the period of the teacher's visit, which was pleasing, 
and made them glad to have the occasion come often. 
There were, no doubt, many parents who had a similar feel- 
ing. 

POLITICS AND RELIGION. 

As before stated, the earlier settlers about Dallas, after 
McCoy, Leonard, Worthington, Wort, and probably half a 
dozen other families of Connecticut Yankees, were nearly 
all Jerseymen. They brought with them many of the cus- 
toms and beliefs of the Jerseymen, which gave as distinct 
an individuality to the Dallas settlement as the Connecticut 
Yankees, the Germans and Scotch-Irish have given to other 
settlements in Pennsylvania. In religion they were Meth- 
odists, and in politics Democrats. Methodism for many 
years had no rival. The first services were held at private 
houses and in barns. The houses of Philip Kunkle, Rich- 
ard Honeywell and Christian Rice were among the places 
for holding prayer meetings and Sunday meetings until the 
old log school-house was built in i8i6. This became then 
the regular place of worship and so continued for many 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. lO/ 

years, until the Goss school-house, the Frantz school-house 
and others were from time to time erected. The First Meth- 
odist Church— still standing, 1886 — near Dallas village 
(since converted into a broom factory), was erected in 185 1. 
No other religious denomination has yet succeeded in 
getting sufficient followers in Dallas to erect a church, 
though there are now numerous representatives of other 
denominations. 

The new Methodist Episcopal Church in Dallas borough, 
designed by Messrs. Kipp and Podmore, architects, at 
Wilkes-Barre, Pa. (of which a cut is elsewhere given), was 
begun in September, 1888, and finished in the spring of 
1889. The ground for this church was obtained from 
George W. Kirkendall, a former resident of Dallas, but then 
of Wilkes-Barre. The work of erecting the new church 
was begun with some ceremony in the presence of about 
fifty interested persons. Mr. G. W. Kirkendall threw out 
the first shovel full of dirt. This church was erected at a 
cost of about ^9,000. I am told that the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church of 185 1 was erected by Almond Goss at a 
cost of $960, his bid being below cost, and ^40 lower than 
any other bid. 

Politically, the Jerseymen in Dallas have not all been so 
steadfast in the faith of their fathers. This assertion may 
be questioned by some, for Dallas township has long been 
famous as a stronghold of Democracy. At one time it was 
unanimously Democratic, but as early as 1836, three men, 
Fayette Allen, Christian Rice and Alexander Ferguson, 
parted company with the old line Democrats, and united 
themselves with the Whigs. For three or four years after- 
wards they stood alone there in this faith. In 1840 their 
number was increased to eleven by the accession of John 
Williams, Abram Ryman, Jacob Rice, Charles Ferguson, 
Joseph Shaver, Henry Simons, Samuel Worden and Joseph 
Richards. From this eleven Whigs has grown the Repub- 



I08 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

Hcan element which has a slight majority in the borough 
and a threatening minority in the township. 

The influence of politics was, however, quite insignificant 
in and about Dallas during the earlier days compared with 
religion. Only on rare occasions, when there was a great 
national agitation, did politicians visit that back country. 
Religion took a deeper hold, and was almost constantly 
kept before the people by local exhorters and revivalists. 
So great was the need of, and haste to make use of, the 
present Methodist Church edifice, that it was pressed into 
active service as soon as it was enclosed, and before any 
floor was put down. The congregation sat on logs. After 
its completion, this church, like the old log school-house, 
was put to a great variety of uses. Lectures on temperance, 
hygiene, travels in holy land, magic lantern panoramas, day 
school and Sunday-school exhibitions. Fourth of July cel- 
ebrations, funerals, revivals and "protracted meetings" were 
all held there. Until quite recently the funerals were always 
held at the church, and they were matters of such general 
public concern that they usually attracted as large an assem- 
blage of the general public as any of the other meetings or 
"goings on" at the church. Even a funeral was diversion 
in that rough and lonely country. "Uncle Oliver Lewis," 
as every one called him, was at one time famous in that 
country for his funeral sermons. He was very sympathetic 
and wept copiously, as did the mourners and most of the 
audience, during his sermon. His discourse was usually an 
hour or more in length, and was devoted largely to pane- 
gyric and the narration of touching incidents in the life of 
the deceased, interwoven with minute and torturing details 
of the special sorrow that this and that member of the family 
would, for particular reasons, feel. The first two or three 
seats directly in front of the pulpit were always reserved for 
mourners. The open coffin was placed directly under and 
in front of the pulpit about midway between the preacher 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. IO9 

and mourners. At all meetings and services in this meeting 
house it was the invariable rule for the men and women to 
occupy separate sides of the house. After the funeral the 
men were invited to pass around and view the corpse, pass 
down the aisle on the women's side, out doors and re-enter 
and take seats again on their own side. 

A reverse operation was then performed by the women. 
After all strangers had thus finished viewing the remains, 
the mourners were invited to take a last lingering and ago- 
nizing look. This public exhibition of mourning was often 
carried to ridiculous and unnatural extremes. Sometimes, 
possibly, from love of display ; and again, perhaps, through 
fear that any lack of sufficient demonstration on the part of 
a near relative or friend might be, as it sometimes was, the 
subject of unfavorable comment in the community. 

Of all the occasions in that church, however, none ever ap- 
proached such intensity of feeling and excitement as the 
"revival" or "protracted meeting" season. 

These meetings usually began late in the fall, about the 
time or just after the farmers had finished their fall work. 
The first symptom usually appeared in the slightly extra 
fervor which the minister put in his sermons and prayers 
on Sunday. Then a special prayer meeting would be set 
for some evening during the week. Other special meetings 
soon followed, so that, if all things were favorable, the re- 
vival or "protracted meeting" would be at a white heat 
within two or three weeks. In the meantime the fact would 
become known far and near, and the "protracted meeting" 
would be the leading event of the neighborhood. If the 
sleighing became good, parties would be formed miles away 
to go sleigh riding with this protracted meeting as their 
objective visiting point, often from idle curiosity or for 
want of something more instructive or entertaining to 
do. Others went equally far, through storm and mud, in 
wagons or on foot, from a higher sense of personal respon- 



no DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

sibility and duty. With many it was a most grave and se- 
rious business. The house was usually packed to repletion. 
Professional ambulatory revivalists, often from remoter parts 
of the state or county, would stop there on their religious 
crusades through the land, to attend and help at these 
meetings. Many of these were specially gifted in the kind 
of praying and speaking that was usually most successful 
at such times. It is not overdrawing to say that many times 
on a still night the noise of those meetings was heard a mile 
away from the church. On one occasion I saw a leading 
exhorter at one of those meetings enter the pulpit, take off 
his coat, hurl it into a corner, and standing in his shirt sleeves 
begin a wild and excited harangue. After possibly half an 
hour of most violent imprecations and raving he came down 
from the pulpit, jumped up on top of the rail which extend- 
ed down the centre of the room and divided the seats on 
the two sides of the house, and from there finished, and ex- 
hausted himself, begging and pleading with sinners to come 
forward and be converted, and invoking "hell fire" and all 
the torments supposed to accompany this kind of caloric, 
upon those who dared to smile or exhibit a sentiment or 
action not in accord with his. 

The principal argument at those meetings was something 
to excite fear through most terrible picturings of hell, and 
the length of an eternal damnation and death. Scores would 
be converted, and many would backslide before the proba- 
tionary season had ended. Some were annually reconverted, 
and as often returned again to their natural state. Many 
remained true to the new life, and became useful and prom- 
inent members of the church and community. It cannot be 
successfully denied that many are reached and reformed at 
those meetings whose consciences never could have been 
touched by any milder form of preaching. They had to be 
gathered in a whirlwind or not at all. 

A famous revivalist and assistant at those meetings was 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. Ill 

Elisha Harris, personally well known to many now living 
in Luzerne county, and also extensively known in larger 
fields, through what Rev. Dr. Peck and others have written 
of him. His home was near the Dallas Methodist Episco- 
pal Church, and he was a frequent visitor there, and a most 
zealous worker at those "protracted meetings." His familiar 
and tremendous shout, "Amen ! Glory be to God," was 
heard always at such times clear and distinct above all 
other noises. Its effect was often most startling and ludic- 
rous. It was his expression of approval of anything that 
was said by any one either in prayer or in speaking. It 
was a short thundering punctuation mark which he could 
not refrain from putting in whenever he listened to a prayer 
or sermon. On one occasion, at Lehman Center Church, 
he came in late at an experience meeting, when some pro- 
bationers were giving their "experiences," etc., since con- 
version. As he entered the church he observed some one 
standing up apparently to speak. Not wishing to disturb 
any one, he quietly seated himself unobserved in a seat be- 
hind everybody in the room near the door. The person 
speaking talked so low and indistinct, only a faint sound of 
the voice could be heard by Elisha. As the speaker sat 
down Elisha heard apparent mutterings of approval from 
the good brethren who sat nearer, and felt sure that some- 
thing good must have been said. The old shouting instinct 
at once irrestibly came over him, and in that silent moment 
"Amen, at a venture^' came thundering up from his power- 
ful throat. The shock to many was quite severe. He had 
so managed that not half a dozen in the house knew of his 
presence. He enjoyed such surprises, and rather took pride 
in the distinction they gave him. 

John Lindskill,a brawny Yorkshire Englishman by birth, 
a man of good sense and sterling honesty, of whom more is 
said elsewhere, was also heard often with good and telling 
effort at those meetings. 



112 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

Infant baptism was but little known to and indeed rarely- 
practiced by the people of Dallas in those days, so that after 
these great revivals there were numerous baptisms of adults. 
With many, and I might say almost with the majority, bap- 
tism, by immersion, was the only true and satisfactory 
method. This rite was frequently performed at Christian 
Rice's mill pond, and sometimes, too, in coldest winter 
weather. Large crowds, drawn by curiosity, were usually 
present at these public baptisms. The deeper sentiment 
and solemnity of the ceremony was but little apprehended 
by the onlookers. I am told that on one of these occasions 
along "early in the forties," Jacob Beam, a famous fighter 
and bully at that time, stood intently and silently watching 
the minister as he led the candidates one by one from the 
shore down into the deep water, and by a sudden move- 
ment threw them over and dipped them under the water. 
Jacob had witnessed several repetitions of this operation, 
which, in his mind, awakened but one thought, and that 
evidently in the line of his ruling passion. After a few mo- 
ments of silent contemplation, Jacob turned to some people 
who were standing near him, and remarked in his broken 
English : "Golly, but I'd like to see any tree men trow me 
so." Jacob had long been a champion wrestler, and claimed 
no man could whip him or make him cry enough. "An' 
yit," he used to add, with boastful family pride, "I ain't as 
good a man as my brudder John, 'cause John can lick his 
daddy, an' dad't more'nd I could ever do." 

The brother John referred to was frequently known as, 
and called John De Beam, or John De La Beam, because 
of his very peculiar habit of interjecting the words "de" or 
"de la" into almost every sentence he spoke, especially into 
the more excited and profane portion of his conversation. 
He was another odd character. Like most of his family he 
was a man of great physical strength and of iron constitu- 
tion. Though more than half a score of years beyond the 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. II3 

age which would have subjected him to the liability of being 
drafted, he voluntarily entered the United States Army 
during the late Civil War in the 143d Regiment Penn- 
sylvania Volunteers, and serve through to its end, with 
probably as little complaint or suffering as any member of 
his regiment. Every year, about the month of August, or 
just after the oats were harvested, he used to announce, in his 

characteristic dialect : " By de la , I've got to go and 

give de old chimney a good burnin' out agin." By this he 
meant going to Harvey's Lake for three or four days and 
often a week or ten days continuous drunk, interspersed 
with going in swimming three or four times a day. On 
these occasions he was usually provided with a large bottle 
or jug well filled with the cheapest and rankest whiskey he 
could purchase. During these "burning out" seasons he 
was usually entirely alone and cared for no other food or 
drink, and at night slept in the woods or by the roadside, 
in a barn or any place where he might happen to be when 
darkness came on. John had occasional other sprees dur- 
ing the year, but he seemed to regard this annual "burnin' 
out of de old chimney" as almost a hygenic necessity. Ann 
Beam was a sister of John. She is still remembered by many 
about Wilkes-Barre and the remoter parts of the county. She 
was an incessant wanderer and lived and slept out of doors 
almost like an Indian. It was, in fact, claimed by some that 
there was a considerable mixture of Indian blood in all the 
members of this family. Another family similarly famous 
in Dallas during the early half of this century was the Lee 
family. They also were reputed to be partly of Indian blood. 
I believe both of these families are now extinct. They pos- 
sessed many good traits, and many very bad ones. They 
were at one time a constant menace to the peace and good 
order of society, and figured often and conspicuously in 
the criminal courts, as the records of Luzerne county, too, 
will attest. 



114 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

Resuming again the subject of this chapter, it cannot well 
be closed without some reference to "Millerism" and the 
preaching of Millerite doctrines in the winter of i842-'43. 
It is doubtful if any other religious movement of modern 
times, and certainly few in all historic time, have ever, in so 
short a period, awakened so vast a religious excitement and 
terror as the announcement and promulgation of these doc- 
trines. Ten years before Rev. William Miller, of Pittsfield, 
Mass., began preaching upon the subject of the second 
coming of Christ, and claimed to have discovered some key 
to the prophecies by which the near approach of the end of 
the world and of the judgment day was clearly shown. His 
earnest manner and elaborate arguments, apparently forti- 
fied with abundant historic proof, had attracted great atten- 
tion and started many followers to adopt and preach the 
doctrines, so that, at the period named, the excitement at- 
tending it throughout Christendom was at its highest point 
The time for this holocaust had been definitely fixed by 
these modern interpreters. The year was 1843 and Febru- 
ary was the month when all things were to collapse and 
end. Even the day was fixed by some. On that, however, 
all did not agree. Some fixed the 14th and others the i6th 
of February, and others still other days in that month for 
the happening of this terrible event. When we recall that 
the doctrine found millions of believers in the most civilized 
centres of the world, and for a time seriously paralyzed 
business in London, New York and Philadelphia, we will not 
wonder that with the people then living in the dreary soli- 
tudes of Dallas, such a doctrine found ready listeners and 
willing believers almost everywhere. The old log school- 
house was not large enough to hold the meetings, and others 
were started in different places. A very large one was con- 
ducted at the "Goss" or "Corner" school-house. The time 
was getting short, and with the nearing of the fatal day ex- 
citement increased. Half the people of the community were 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. II5 

in some degree insane. Many people refused to do any- 
business, but devoted themselves entirely to religious work 
and meditation. These meetings were started early in the fall, 
and were kept up continuously through the winter. The plan 
and intention of the leaders was to convert every one in 
Dallas township, and with a few exceptions the plan suc- 
ceeded. Of course there were different degrees of faith. 
Some were so sure of the dissolution of all things on the 
appointed day that they refused to make any provisions for 
a longer existence. One man, Christian Snyder, refused to 
sell corn or grain, but was willing to give it away to the 
needy, and only desired to keep enough for the needs of 
himself and family until the fixed final day. Many of the 
people spent that dreadful winter reading the bible, praying 
and pondering over that horrible interpretation. The me- 
morable meteoric shower which extended almost over the 
whole world on the night of the I2th and 13th of Novem- 
ber, 1833, w^s still fresh in the memory of almost every 
adult, and was well calculated to prepare their minds to be- 
lieve the proofs and prophecies of such a catastrophe. That 
never-to-be forgotten rain of fire must have been frightfully 
impressive even to the most scientific man who could best 
understand the causes which produced it. It has no paral- 
lel in recorded history, and one can quite readily understand 
how such an interpretation of the holy prophecies, following 
immediately such a fiery manifestation in the heavens, 
should find easy believers. 

Converts were frequently baptized that winter by immer- 
sion through holes cut in the ice, and in one instance, I am 
credibly informed, when a parent only succeeded in convert- 
ing a doubting daughter on the night before the supposed 
fatal day, he took her himself on that bitter cold night to the 
nearest mill-pond, cut a hole in the ice and baptized her by 
immersion. That man was personally well known to me, 
and to the day of his death, which occurred only within the 



Il6 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

last decade, he remained firm in his faith in similar inter- 
pretations of the prophecies, and continued calculating and 
fixing new dates in the future for the coming of the end of 
all things. He was never disconcerted by any failures, but 
seriously accounted for it by saying that he had made a lit- 
tle error in his calculation, and gave you a new and cor- 
rected date farther on. This man was Christopher Snyder. 

An anecdote is told of Harris in connection with the me- 
teoric shower above referred to, illustrating the common 
belief that the stars had actually fallen from the heavens. 
On the evening folloMang the shower, Mr. Harris said he 
could see a great diminution of the number of stars in the 
heavens, and ventured the belief that a few more showers 
like the one of the evening before would use up the balance 
of them. So common was this belief that the stars had 
actually fallen, so great and memorable was the event, that 
to this day, among the older men about Dallas, you will 
occasionally hear men trying to fix the date or year of some 
long past occurrence, and not infrequently one will remark 
something like this : "Well, I know it happened then be- 
cause the stars fell in thirty-three, and this happened just 
so many years after" (or before, just as the case may be). 
"Now figure it up yourself." 

Sunday-schools, those now inseparable adjuncts of almost 
every religious society, were established in Dallas at quite 
an early day — soon after the erection of the old log school- 
house — probably not long after 1820. On account of the 
distance children had to go, and of the bad roads during 
winter time in the country, these Sunday-schools were at 
first only kept up during the summer months. About 1870 
the first effort was made in Dallas to have the Sunday- 
schools continue the year round at the church. 

With difficulty it was kept alive through the first few 
years, but, by the efforts of a few untiring ones, the school 
became perennial and prosperous. The old plan was to 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 11/ 

organize the Sunday-school as soon as the roads became 
settled in spring, and to close with the coming of the muddy 
roads of autumn. The fourth of July celebration of earlier 
times was usually under the auspices of the Sunday-school, 
and was the great event of the Sunday-school year. A 
neighboring grove was usually cleared of underbrush, some 
logs were laid down and slabs or boards laid across them 
for seats. A speaker's stand or large platform was erected 
in front. If not more than a mile or so away the children 
usually formed in line at the church and marched to the 
grove. The drum and fife were the only music. We knew 
nothing about any better music, and wished for nothing 
better. In fact, when old Uncle Alex Lord of Poverty 
Hollow, near Pincherville, a drummer of the war of 1812, 
used to play his famous " Double Drag Yankee Doodle," 
with Mr. Hazeltine from Trucksville accompanying him on 
the fife, we boys thought it about the best music that there 
was. We always expected to see Mr. Hazletine at Dallas on 
the fourth of July, and he seldom disappointed us. His fife, 
when not in use on those occasions, was always carefully 
wrapped in a red handkerchief and seldom allowed to leave 
his immediate possession. Sometimes a bass drum was 
added to the band of that day, but requiring less skill to 
manipulate it had a great variety of performers. These 
celebrations usually brought together a large number of 
people from miles around, and were conducted much as an 
ordinary Sunday-school picnic is now, except that there was 
generally a reading of the Declaration of Independence, fol- 
lowed by a fourth of July oration with plenty of eagle in it, 
then possibly a story about the Wyoming Massacre or the 
sufferings of early settlers by old Uncle Charles Harris, or 
some other venerable person. Once I remember also some 
funny songs by Robert Holly, then a recent arrival from 
the old country. Of course there were plenty of good things 
to eat, and usually the appetite to enjoy them. For the 



Il8 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

children it was one of the rare occasions when each could 
have a stick of candy, and possibly a little thin lemonade. 
Simple as these treats seem now, they were of greatest con- 
sideration to the children of Dallas in those days. They 
have better times now, and there are but few of the luxuries 
which they cannot now enjoy with the rest of the children 
of the world. For the work of keeping up Sunday-schools, 
fourth of July celebrations, military displays, and other kin- 
dred diversions in Dallas during the past fifty years, more 
credit is due to Jacob Rice, Esq., than to any other man, 
and for it, as well as his many other good deeds, he deserves 
lasting remembrance. Mr. Rice died in the year 189-, and 
was buried in the new cemetery at Dallas. He will long 
retain a warm place in the memory of those who knew him. 

AMUSEMENTS. 

The social festivities and amusements of those early 
times were, as has been previously stated, very limited. 
What there was of them, however, was usually on the dulce 
cum utile principle — a certain amount of work, seasoned to 
suit the taste, with some kind of innocent play. Apple cuts, 
spinning bees, quilting bees, logging bees, stone bees and 
huckleberry parties were of this character, and constituted 
the bulk of all amusements. Balls and parties were looked 
upon by many as worldly and frivolous. Occasional public 
balls were given at the hotel, but were not extensively pa- 
tronized because of the brutal fighting which for many years 
kept them in bad odor. Roughs and bullies assembled 
from all parts of the county on those occasions. For a gang 
from Monroe, now Wyoming county, or from Shawnee 
(Plymouth) to meet at Dallas, and force their way into the 
ball room and break up a dancing party, or for one faction 
of the Dallas roughs to perpetrate the same outrage on any 
party whoever they might see, was at one time considered 
the smart and funny thing to do. Even in the memory of 




Captain Jacoi; Rice 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. II9 

many who are yet on the morning side of forty, a public 
ball or party could not be held at Dallas without having 
strong -men engaged to act as doorkeepers and bartenders 
to prevent the invasion of the roughs on the ball room and 
the bar. So rough and so frequent were those fighting 
scenes at Dallas, not only at balls, but at political meetings, 
barn raisings, logging bees, stone bees and almost all occa- 
sions for the assembling of men, that Dallas got credit or 
discredit for almost every fight or outrageous act occurring 
in the county and not otherwise accurately accounted for. 
According to general belief no good could come out of this 
Nazareth. Not only Dallas, but everything connected with 
it, was the subject of jeer and by-word for all the rest of the 
country around, and respectable citizens were almost put 
to shame by letting the place of their abode be known in 
some of the neighboring towns. "He is from Dallas," was 
the usual and every day observation, whenever a drunken 
brute or extraordinarily awkward and uncouth person ap- 
peared on the street "of Wilkes-Barre." No one would 
question the truth of such a remark, and with probably a 
majority of the citizens it was the first thought. The repu- 
tation of Dallas was so bad that everything disreputable was 
laid at its doors. Prior to the great Civil War of 1861-65, 
I will not attempt to say that it did not merit a portion of 
its unsavory reputation, but since then I claim that no com- 
munity could have done more to redeem itself At the 
breaking out of that war the rough fighting element of Dal- 
las was among the first to join the many true and brave 
men who went from there in defence of the Union. Many 
of those who were commonly known as the fighters in Dal- 
las were only so when drunk. When sober, they were 
peaceable and law abiding citizens. When drunk, they 
were eager to "fight their weight in wildcats." 

The war cured all that. A few of them lived to come 
back with the remnant, but they were sober, serious, earnest 



I20 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

men now. They had seen enough of fighting and wanted 
to get back to the plow. From then until now Dallas has 
been as peaceful and law abiding as could be desired by the 
most exacting. 

Of "apple cuts" I can speak in lighter vein. They were 
never sanguinary or brutal, as far as I can learn. On the 
contrary, they were generally occasions of great merriment. 

It has been truly said that a country is poor indeed when 
it is so poor that dried apples become a luxury. Before the 
days of cheap sugar and canned fruits, dried apples and 
cider apple sauce, the latter made of apples boiled to a pulp 
in cider, were luxuries and necessities both in many places 
besides Dallas. Apples were always abundant and cheap 
in Dallas. In fact, when the forests are cleared away, apple 
trees are found to spring up spontaneously in some places, 
and only need a little trimming and protection to become 
good orchards. This fact was accounted for to the writer 
by the owner of one such orchard as follows : He said a 
good many people had marveled at the natural growth of 
his orchard, and had asked him how he could account for 
it. "Of course you know," said he, "that it has always been 
my habit to give such things a good deal of thought. I 
could never be satisfied, like most folks, to just sit down 
and take things as they come without trying to understand 
them, and I always keep at them until I cipher them out. 
Now, you see it's just like this about these apple trees. 
Some day or nuther, probably millions of years ago, this 
hull country was overflowed by the ocean. That's plain 
enough to any man who takes the trouble to think about 
these things. Well, right about over here somewhere there 
has been a shipwreck some day, and a ship load of apples has 
sunk right here, and these apple trees have sprung from the 
seeds. You know a seed will keep a great while and then 
grow." 

The work of paring the apples and removing the cores for 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 121 

an ordinary family's winter supply of dried apples and apple 
butter, before the days of machines for that purpose, was a 
task of no little magnitude. All had to be done by hand. 
Well, as sometimes happened, many bushels had to be so 
treated. It was a task that would have occupied the work- 
ing portion of an ordinary family several days, and thus 
much of the fruit would, from long keeping, have lost 
its value for cider appliance by becoming stale and partly 
dried. For this reason there seemed almost a necessity for 
calling in help sufficient to do the required amount of work 
in a very short period of time. The apple cut solved this 
difficulty successfully. When a family had once determined 
on having an apple cut, it was given out to the nearest neigh- 
bors, and from them it spread of its own accord for miles 
around. Those who heard of it could go if they chose to. No 
special invitations were required. The apple cut was an even- 
ing festivity, and was most prevalent just after buckwheat 
thrashing, when the nights were cool and the roads not very 
muddy. I am told that in later years it began to be con- 
sidered "bad form" to go to an apple cut without special 
invitation ; but apple cuts were degenerating then, and they 
died soon after when the apple parer in its present improved 
form was introduced. 

The old fashioned apple cut was a very informal affair. 
Each guest upon arrival was expected to take a plate and 
knife, select a seat and some apples, and begin work with- 
out disturbing anyone else. The "cut" usually lasted for 
an hour or two. Twenty or thirty people could, and did 
usually, accomplish a good deal in that time in the way of 
work as well as say and do a great many of the common- 
place things that country people ordinarily indulge in when 
thus congenially thrown together. 

After the work was finished and the debris cleared away, 
a surreptitious fiddle was sometimes pulled from an old 
grain bag and started up. " Fisher's Hornpipe," " Money 



122 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

Musk" and "The Arkansaw Traveler" composed the reper- 
toire of the average fiddler thereabouts in those days, and 
either air was enough to set all heels, with the slightest pro- 
clivities in that way, to kicking in the French Four or Vir- 
ginia Reel or Cotillon. At some houses dancing was looked 
upon as improper, and in its stead some simple games were 
played. The festivities usually broke off early, as all had 
long distances to go. Dissipation in the matter of late hours 
could not be indulged in very much, because of the very 
general country habit of early rising. 

The gentlemen did not often forget or fail to be gallant 
in the matter of escorting the ladies home. Usually the de- 
mands of etiquette were satisfied with the gentlemen "going 
only as far as the chips," as it was commonly expressed, 
meaning, of course, the place where the wood was hauled 
in front of the house and chopped up for firewood. 

"Going as far as the chips" was an expression as common 
and as generally understood in that day as going to the 
front gate would be now. The front gate then was gener- 
erally a few improvised steps to assist in climbing over the 
rail fence at some point near the "chips" or wood pile. 

"Spinning Bees" and " Quilting Bees" were exclusively 
feminine industries. With each invitation to a "spinning 
bee" was sent a bunch of tow sufficient for two or three 
days' spinning, which the recipient was expected to convert 
into thread or yarn by or before the date fixed for the party. 
The acceptance of the tow was equivalent to a formal ac- 
ceptance of the invitation. On the appointed day each lady 
took her bunch of spun tow and proceeded early in the af- 
ternoon to the house of the hostess. The afternoon was 
usually spent in the usually easy and unconventional man- 
ner that might be expected when a dozen or fifteen able 
bodied women of the neighborhood, who had not seen each 
other lately, are assembled. This was, of course, long be- 
fore the newspaper or magazine had reached their present 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 1 23 

perfection, and before the daily paper "brought the universe 
to our breakfast table" 

The surest way for a lady to avoid being the subject of 
comment was to be at the meeting. The gentlemen always 
came in time for tea and to see the ladies home. 

"Quilting Bees" define themselves in their name. They 
were very similar to spinning bees, except that the work was 
done after the guests had assembled. 

Huckleberry parties occurred usually just after corn hoe- 
ing, early in July, and consisted of two or three wagon 
loads, probably a dozen boys and girls, provisioning them- 
selves with about three days' rations, and starting near the 
smallest hours of the night for some one of the famous 
huckleberry mountains like Mehoopany Mountain or Allen 
Mountain. The mountain top was usually reached about 
nine or ten o'clock next day. One night at least was usu- 
ally spent in camping out on the open mountain top. Of 
course there would always be a good harvest of berries. 
The return was usually planned so that home would be 
reached about the same hour in the night that marked the 
departure. Sometimes the more industrious would prolong 
the trip one or two days more, but usually the festivity had 
worn many out at the end of the second day and all would 
be glad to return. 

Of "Stoning Bees," "Logging Bees" and "Raising Bees," 
mention has been made before. The names are almost 
self-explaining, though just why they were called "Bees'" 
I cannot learn, unless it is because those who came were 
expected to, and usually did, imitate the industrial virtues 
of that insect. They were also sometimes called "frolics," 
possibly for the reason that the frolicking was often as hard 
and as general as the work. Strong and hearty men were 
much inclined to indulge in playful trials of strength and 
other frivolities when they met at such times. This ten- 



124 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

dency was much enhanced in the earher days by the cus- 
tomary presence of intoxicants. 

These amusements were varied and extended far beyond 
those above mentioned. They exhibit and illustrate much 
of the character, surroundings and habits of those early 
people. They wanted no better amusement. It was, in 
their esteem, a wicked waste of time and in conflict with 
their necessary economies to have parties or gatherings of 
any kind exclusively for amusement, and unaccompanied 
with some economic or industrial purpose like those indi- 
cated above. 

The dancing party or ball was a thing of later date, but 
even when it came, and for many years after, it was looked 
upon by the more serious people as not only wicked and 
degrading in a religious and moral point of view, but very 
wasteful in an economic sense. 

Their hard sense taught them that their industrio-social 
gatherings, together with the church meetings and Sunday- 
schools, furnished ample occasions for the young to meet 
and become acquainted, while the elements of bad that crept 
into modern society elsewhere were there reduced to a min- 
imum. 

HARD TIMES AND BUSINESS. 

As before stated in this paper, there was a very great 
scarcity of money in those early times in Dallas, nor was 
there much improvement in this respect until after the 
breaking out of the War of 1 86 1, which flooded the country 
with "greenbacks." 

The many expedients employed in those early days to 
get a little money, as well as to get along without it, seem 
almost incredible in these days of plenty. All the dealing 
at stores was done through a system of exchanges. Instead 
of "shopping" at the stores they called it "trading," which 
was the exact word to use. The storekeeper was by neces- 
sity compelled to take anything that was offered in exchange 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 125 

for goods. Among the articles known by the writer to have 
been so exchanged or traded are grain of all kinds, butter, 
eggs, cows, calves, hogs, sows and pigs, game of all kinds, 
fresh fish, poultry, furs and skins, lumber, shingles, township 
orders, horses, yoke of oxen, beef, cattle, etc. There were 
many more, but these are fair samples. To some extent the 
practice is still kept up. Sometimes the store bill would be 
allowed to run for a while, and when it came to settlement 
a cow or some other of the more valuable articles enumer- 
ated would be brought in to balance account. I have a 
personal recollection of every item in the articles above 
enumerated having been exchanged or traded for goods at 
my father's store. 

Farmers often hired extra help by agreeing to work an 
equal number of days in exchange. This was called "chang- 
ing work," and of course made things equal without the use 
of money. A large portion of the products of the farms 
and mills at that time gradually drifted into the hands of 
the local merchants, who sent them to the larger cities, 
where they were sometimes sold for money, but oftener 
again exchanged or "traded" for goods for the country 

stores. 

Some money, however— a very little sufficed— had to be 
raised to pay taxes and for a few other purposes, such as 
church collections. The minister was usually paid with 
"donations," but some cash was necessary at times, and the 
getting of this cash was a most difficult thing to do. One 
of the methods was for the men to go down to the Wyo- 
ming Valley during the wheat harvesting season, and help 
gather the crop. Scores used to go from Dallas and vicinity 
for this purpose every year, and, as Colonel Charles Dor- 
rance once said to the writer, they did a day's work too. 
The farmers in the valley had begun to accumulate, and 
many of them were already quite well off They were glad 
to get such good help, and the "young men from the back 



126 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

of the mountains" were very glad of the opportunity to get 
work that would bring them a Httle money. I am told that 
the wages paid were either a bushel of wheat or a dollar in 
cash for a day's work. Wheat was a cash item in those 
days ; so much so, that it was a common saying when one 
wished to emphasize the value or sufficiency of an article or 
a security of any kind to call it "good as wheat." 

In the winter time, those of the Dallas farmers who had 
teams, and some who had not, were, for many years, in the 
habit of going each year to White Haven, or to "The 
Swamp," as it was called, to work in the lumber woods. 
This was another method to get a little real money, and 
was of later origin than by working in the harvest fields in 
the valley. The workers at "The Swamp" usually went out 
there in the early winter and stayed till spring. Just prior 
to the War of 1861, it was not an unusual thing for twenty 
or thirty men from Dallas to thus spend the winter at or 
near White Haven. 

The experiences of my father back about the 30's, when 
the big dam at White Haven was in course of erection, have 
been often told to me, and illustrate well how hard it was to 
get work that would bring money pay. He was then a lad 
of only about fifteen years, but was large and strong for his 
age. Hearing that the fabulous sum of eleven dollars per 
month was being paid for laborers to work on that dam, he 
walked all the way from Dallas and offered himself as a labor- 
er. His apparent youth was against him, but after much urg- 
ing he was allowed to begin on a week's trial. He spent that 
week with a wheelbarrow and at quarrying stones on the 
easterly bank of the river. Never in his life, as he often 
said afterwards, did he work harder or try to keep a job 
than he did during that week, which meant a good deal 
with him ; and never was he more broken-hearted when at 
the end of that time he was told that he was too young, and 
would have to give way to older and stronger men. To 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 12/ 

get a little money ahead so as to start some kind of business 
was his ambition, and to have this great opportunity wiped 
put in such a manner was to him a severe blow. The experi- 
ence was not lost, however, for he saw that at this point 
money was circulating, and that farm products were needed 
and could be sold for cash there. He therefore returned to 
Dallas, secured a team of oxen and a sled, loaded the latter 
with beef, took it to the camps near White Haven where 
the men were living, and sold it all to eager buyers and with 
some profit. He repeated the trip several times with differ- 
ent kinds of farm produce. The last time, late in the fall, 
with apples, which froze and were spoiled on the way. 

On one of those trips, while at White Haven, one of the 
laborers died. He was a Catholic, and there being no con- 
secrated ground nearer than Carbondale, my father let his 
ox team and sled for one dollar to haul the body to Car- 
bondale for burial. 

Ox teams were much more numerous than all others com- 
bined in those days. They were less expensive to keep 
and had another advantage of being converted into beef 
when no lonsfer useful for work. There were still other 
advantages in favor of oxen for that time and place ; they 
were more easily managed than horses ; they needed no 
harness ; their slowness and gentleness better fitted them for 
the work in the woods and on the stumpy new land. 

Among the few bad traits of the ox was sometimes the 
habit of wanting to pasture in some other field than the one 
into which he had been put, commonly known as being 
"breachy." It is said that on one occasion some one called 
on Samuel H., a well to do farmer of Dallas, to buy a "yoke 
of oxen." Mr. H. was much afflicted with stammering. 
His oxen were beautiful to look at, and quite filled the 
stranger's ej^es, and the price asked for them was satisfac- 
tory. The stranger began to question Mr. H. as to their 
qualities. "Are they sound ?" asked the stranger. "Y-y- 



128 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

y-y-ye-yes," responded Mr. H. "Are they gentle ?" re- 
sumed the stranger. " Ye-ye-ye-yes," stammered Mr. H. 
"Are they breachy ?" continued the stranger. "Th-th-th-th- 
they n-n-n-never bother me any," answered Mr. H. again 
after an unusual paroxysm of stammering. Seeing the 
apparent innocence of Mr. H., and the pitiable effort it 
caused him to continue the conversation, the stranger closed 
the bargain at this and took the oxen. He was not long in 
finding out the real character of the animals, and returned 
demanding satisfaction of Mr. H. He began by accusing 
Mr. H. of all kinds of deception and lying. "You sold me 
those oxen," said he, "and told me that they were not 
breachy, and they are the worst I ever saw. I can't keep 
them in the township." "Ne-ne-ne-never told you any 
such th-th-th-thing," replied Mr. H.. " Y-y~y-y-you asked 
me if the oxen were breachy, and I-i-i-i told you they 
n-n-n-never bothered me any, and they n-n-n-never did, 
'cause I wouldn't let such a thing b-b-b-bother me." This 
fact came forcibly to the stranger's recollection, and he de- 
parted filled, no doubt, with the conviction that greatest de- 
ception can sometimes be practiced with a literal truth. 

This stammermg was, however, genuine with the farmer, 
and he had great difficulty in uttering certain words. One 
of the unpronounceable words with him, I remember, was 
"shilling." He used to struggle and chaw at that word for 
a long time, and was never able to pronounce it. The only 
way he could express what he was trying to say was by 
switching off suddenly and substituting " 'leven penny bit," 
which he could say quite readily. 

Another ox story is told of him in trying to sell a pair of 
oxen, one of which (the near one) was good and the other 
one of small value. He would say, "That n-n-n-n-near ox 
is the bb b-best ox you ever s-s-saw, and the other one is 
his m mm- mate." 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 1 29 

Mr. H. was withal a man of quick wit and much good 
nature, and had the esteem of his neighbors and those who 
knew him best. 

CHARACTERS. 

Abram Pike, the "Indian killer," was a wandering men- 
dicant for many years prior to his death. He was found 
dead one morning in a barn near the present residence of 
George Ide, in Lehman (then Dallas) township. He was 
buried by Dallas townsfolk as a pauper, under an apple tree 
near the Presbyterian Church in old "Ide burying ground," 
in the present township of Lehman. 

The following incident, connected with his later years, 
has been told me, which I do not remember to have heard 
of or seen in print before. The owners of an eel ware in 
the Susquehanna River, just above the gas house at Wilkes- 
Barre, had strong suspicions that some one was stealing 
their fish, and set a watch to catch him. In due course the 
thief was caught, and it proved to be poor Pike. He was 
taken down to old HoUenback's storehouse, which stood on 
the river bank a short distance below Market street, and 
locked up. Some wagish boys put up a card over the door, 
"The largest Pike ever caught in the Susquehanna River now 
on exhibition here — admission ten cents" ; and it is said they 
took a good many dimes from the curious people who 
flocked to see it. 

In 1 81 3 Steuben Butler proposed to publish a life of 
"Abraham Pike," but for lack of support the work was not 
published. The following is a copy of the original subscrip- 
tion paper now in hands of C. E. Butler {verbatim) : 

" PROPOSALS 

"For publishing by subscription a New Work, being the 
life of Abraham Pyke, containing his adventures in the 
brittish service and in America in the Wyoming war, etc., 
etc. The work is ready for the press as soon as sufficient 



130 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

subscribers will warrant the publication. It will be printed 
on good paper with an entire new tipe and stitched in blew, 
price to subscribers 50 cents. 
" Wilkesbarre, August, 18 1 3. 



"Subscriber's name. Place of residence. 

"(no subscribers.)" 

While speaking of the wandering propensity of Pike, I 
am reminded of the other two characters who are still re- 
membered, no doubt, by many in widely separated parts of 
the State of Pennsylvania. I refer to John Shaw and James 
or "Jimmy" Bradshaw. The latter was a soldier of the war 
of 1 81 2, and was very old and very deaf, at my earliest recol- 
lections, and was a peddler by occupation. He spent his win- 
ters usually at the charge of the town where he happened 
to be when the first snow came. He was out, however, 
again with the first warm spring days, and would find his 
way to some near storekeeper and secure a pack of goods 
to peddle. This pack consisted usually of a few needles, 
pins, buttons, some thread, and possibly half a dozen other 
small articles, costing probably five or ten dollars for the 
entire outfit. Of course his purchases had to be on credit, 
but none who knew him would refuse to trust him. He 
traveled over a vast extent of country. Almost everyone 
knew him along the line of his routes, and was always will- 
ing to trade with him or give him food and lodging. He 
was careful to return sooner or later, often not until he 
drifted around next year, and pay his bills for purchases. 
In mind and manners he was as simple as a child. He spoke 
with a low, genteel mumble, which made it very difficult to 
understand him. He never shaved, yet his face was almost 
as hairless and soft as a woman's. 

John Shaw came nearer to being a veritable wandering 
Jew than any other man of my knowledge. Not that he 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. I3I 

was ever supposed to be a bearer or precursor of pestilence, 
but simply because he was a persistent and constant wan- 
derer. About once a year he would be seen, always alone, 
slowly strolling across the country from the south towards 
the north, wearing a shabby-genteel black suit with broad- 
cloth frock coat and a much worn silk hat. He generally 
walked with his head bowed down and hands clasped be- 
hind him, as if in deep thought. Later in the year he would 
pass down across the country again, but in the opposite 
direction. I have seen him pass my father's house in this 
way many times, but do not remember to have ever seen 
him look up and speak to any one in passing. No one, so 
far as I could ever learn, knew where his home was or 
where he went to on his annual trips. 

A story is told of him that on one occasion he was taken 
sick while then tramping through one of the lower counties 
of Pennsylvania, and was obliged to take a room at a hotel. 
The appearances not being favorable to the theory of his 
having much wealth, there was a coldness and lack of atten- 
tion on the part of the landlord. Shaw's genteel, though 
much worn hat and apparel, together with his natural 
shrewdness, came to his relief. Assuming an importance 
and dignity equal to his purpose, he sent for the landlord, 
and hinting that he feared that his illness was something of 
a most serious nature, which might terminate fatally, he 
asked to have a doctor and a lawyer sent for at once. The 
former, of course, to cure his physical ills, and the latter to 
draw his will. He hinted at large possessions in other parts 
of the state, and from this on the doctor, lawyer and land- 
lord were all attention to his wants. He dictated a will with 
great care and elaboration, disposing of large blocks of im- 
aginary landed estates, consisting mainly of farms and coal 
lands in and about Kingston and Wilkes Barre, making most 
liberal provisions for the doctor, lawyer and landlord. With 
the excellent attention and nursing that followed, he was soon 



132 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

convalescent, and through the kindness of the landlord was 
favored with many long and pleasant drives in the fresh air. 
When, later on, he was strong enough to walk, short strolls 
were indulged in from day to day, until one day, when re- 
covery was quite complete, Shaw continued one of his strolls 
so far that he failed to return, leaving the landlord and other 
attendants to grow wiser at their leisure. 

SOME DALLAS YARNS AND INCIDENTS. 

There was at one time, before the days of the organ and 
choir in the Dallas churches, a good deal of rivalry between 
Jacob Rice and his brother-in-law, William C. Roushey, 
both leading members, as to which could best start the 
tunes. During the reading of the hymn it was not an un- 
common occurrence to see each of them rise from his seat 
and remain standing. The boys generally understood from 
this there was fun ahead, and were seldom disappointed. 
Hardly would the last words of the reading be finished be- 
fore each of the tune starters would make a drive at the sing- 
ing. Sometimes the same tune, but often entirely different 
tunes with different meters. A long meter hymn to a short 
meter tune, or vice versa, made but little difference to them. 
The question with them was which would the congregation 
follow. One or the other usually got the following, though 
I have known instances when, to my untrained ear, it seemed 
that each had a following on a different tune. To say that 
the music was usually "executed" well, would, as I recall it 
now, seem to define the situation perfectly. 

As an example of how greatness is sometimes born in us 
and sometimes thrust upon us, it is said of Mr. Roushey 
that he once remarked that he did not understand how it 
it was that so many people knew him whom he did not 
know, unless it was because he always started the tunes in 
church. Mr. Roushey was a much respected citizen through 
a long life spent in Dallas, but, like most of us, he had pecu- 




William C Roushey 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA, 1 33 

liarities which it is difficult to disassociate from his memory. 
He was a privileged character in his church, and felt it his 
duty to interrupt the minister at any time, from his seat, if 
he thought any misstatement was being made ; and not in- 
frequently I have heard him call to the minister during the 
reading of a hymn and ask for its number, which probably 
he had not accurately heard at the first announcement. 
This probably grew out of his desire to be ready to start 
the tune. 

Another amusing story is told in which this same Mr. 
Roushey figures somewhat. He had recently been licensed 
as a local preacher or exhorter, and began by trying him- 
self on the Dallas congregation. Among those present was 
John Linskill, a large-brained, sharp-witted Yorkshire Eng- 
lishman, whose critical comprehension nothing uttered by 
the preacher was likely to escape. Of course the sermon 
and the text must be delivered without notes, lest some one 
might question the genuineness of the "call to preach," and 
as a result there were some "bad breaks." The text prob- 
ably intended to be used was "The ways of the wicked are 
an abomination to the Lord," and to this text he stuck. 
Faithfully for a long hour he chased it up and down and 
ran it into all kinds of human experience, and pictured the 
horror and abomination of the Lord over the prayers of the 
wicked. How wicked it was for the wicked to pray. To 
those who happened to be awake during the long harangue, 
among them Mr. Linskill, of course it was all very ludicrous. 

At last, after a great deal of difficulty in making human 
affairs dovetail with this text, the preacher sat down. On 
the instant Mr. Linskill rose from his seat far back in the 
church and said with a deliberate, penetrating voice heard 
in every corner of the church, "If any man will show me 
that text in the bible, I will be a wiser man than I ever 
have been," and sat down. Of course this was a crushing 
humiliation to the preacher, but it seemed to be one of the 



134 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

cases of "least said soonest forgotten," and so I presume 
the incident has passed out of the memory of most of those 
who were present. 

A story is told of A. L. Warring, who for a short time 
about 1849 to 1851, kept the hotel at Dallas. Among his 
most liberal patrons were Charles Bennett, a lawyer of 
Wilkes-Barre, and Henry Hancock, a merchant of Dallas, 
Huntsville and elsewhere, before mentioned in this book, 
who were in the habit of stopping here on their way up or 
down on numerous fishing and other excursions. They 
were both famed for the fun that they were usually able to 
extract at almost any time from the most trifling incident or 
fact that might arise. On one occasion they began to show 
a disposition to criticize Warring's way of running a hotel, 
and wound up by telling him that unless he secured a hotel 
sign with an American eagle on it they should decline to 
again stop at his hotel. The jest was so well hidden that 
Warring promised faithfully to procure that bird as soon as 
possible, rather than lose such valuable patrons. P. V. 
Wambold, a cabinetmaker and undertaker of note, then at 
Kingston, was commissioned by Warring to do the work, 
which he did in his usual finished style, putting in the bird's 
mouth a ribbon on which were painted the words ''E plu- 
ribus urnini" in rather conspicuous gold letters. 

In due time the sign was erected and ready to greet the 
eyes of Bennett and Hancock when they came again, which 
was not long after. Supposing, of course, that they would 
be delighted with the new sign, Warring went out to greet 
them, and incidentally "pointed with pride" to the American 
eagle on the sign. Quick as thought signs of disgust and 
contempt began to darken the countenances of the guests. 
Of course Warring could not understand the cause and 
asked an explanation. "Explanation," exclaimed the guests, 
"Don't you see you have insulted us ? We are Americans 
and we asked you to erect an American eagle sign, instead 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 135 

of which you have had an '^ E pluribus 7cnurn'" bird put up 
here, which is an insult to every American who comes to 
your house," It is said that Warring was so worried over 
the matter that he sent the sign back to Wambold to have 
it made right, as I presume it was, though tradition telleth 
not. 

The fact that no religious denomination except the Meth- 
odists has ever thrived in Dallas, has been mentioned before, 
but the density of the ignorance concerning other denomi- 
nations in that country was never brought to the writer's 
notice until one of the Wilkes-Barre evening papers of recent 
date published the following : 

"A distinguished Episcopalian clergyman from Philadel- 
phia was at Glen Summit recently. One day he came to 
the city, and in the company of friends drove over to Dallas. 
Being a great walker he started off by himself to view the 
beauty of the surrounding country. Becoming thirsty he 
went to a farm house and asked if he could purchase a little 
milk. The lacteal was produced and other hospitalities ex- 
tended, for which remuneration was refused. 'Do you have 
any Episcopalians over here ?' he inquired of his hostess. 
"Well, really now, I don't know,' she answered; 'our hired 
man shot some sort of a queer critter down back of the barn 
the other day, but he allowed it was a woodchuck.' " 

This story is a little moth-eaten, and I fear was never in- 
digenous to Dallas; but whatever it may lack of truth, 
illustrates what I before observed about the tendency of the 
people of Wilkes-Barre and vicinity to attribute to Dallas 
any unseemly or uncivilized act or remark which was with- 
out other localization. 

A series of good yarns are told of and concerning one 
M L , an all around Yankee genius, already men- 
tions in these papers. On one occasion he and a party of 
neighbors came down to Dallas to enjoy one of Philip 
Raub's famous suppers of chicken and waffles, and after- 



136 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

wards to have a little dance. Mr. L. brought his fiddle 
along, and was orchestra, called off the dances, and was 
general manager of ceremonies as usual. As the sets were 

formed for the quadrille it happened that Mr. L 's son 

Charles and his partner took a position nearly in front of and 
close to the father. As the dance proceeded, the father no- 
ticed that Charles seemed to be a good deal more interested 
in talking to his partner than in promptly responding to his 
part in the quadrille as the calls were made. This indifference 
grew until Charles was practically standing still during many 
of the evolutions where he should have taken part. Presently 
"swing your partners" came ringing from Mr. L., and the 
music for a swing proceeded, while Charles stood still talk- 
ing to his partner, oblivious of every one else in the room. 
Mr. L. could endure this no longer. Suddenly the music 
stopped and he called out, "Charley, swing that gal; if you're 
a goin' to dance, I want you to dance ; if you're a goin' to 
spark, go down in the settin' room." 

Mr. L. at one time had a considerable reputation for his 
gift at swearing, and when it was learned that he was about 
to move to Dallas that reputation preceded him. At that time 
Dallas could boast of another citizen, Mr. J. F., also distin- 
guished, among other things, for his facility in the invention 
and use of oaths. About the time that Mr. L. was coming 
to Dallas, some one mentioned to Mr. F. that when Mr. L. 
arrived, he (F.) would have to retire, as Mr. L. could beat 
him all over at swearing. The curiosity of F. was so aroused 
by this that he determined to go down to the hotel at Dal- 
las on the day of the arrival to see the newcomer, and pos- 
sibly get some points in profanity. After waiting around 
some time, a stranger drove up to the hotel and stopped. 
Hardly had he done so when the flood gates were opened, 
and I am told by those who heard it that the way he 
swore was an inspiration. No name for the stranger had 
yet been given, and F. stood wondering if this could be his 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 1 37 

rival. After hearing a few choice specimens the doubt was 
enough removed for F. to approach and address him. "Ain't 
your name L. ?" asked F. "Yes," barked the stranger; 

how the did you know me ?" "Well, sir, by , 

they told me that you were comin', and that you were the 
only man in the world that could beat me a-swearin', and 

I know'd you by that." They were fast friends from 

then on — two of the best-hearted men in the township ; 
rough diamonds indeed they were. 

A good story is told of Joseph Hoover dating well back 
in the first half of the century. He went one day to the 

store of Mr. Jacob R , in a neighboring town, to get a 

gallon of molasses, taking with him the jug usually used for 
that purpose. As it happened that day, the son, Isaac, who 
usually waited on him, was otherwise engaged, and the 
father, Jacob, went down cellar to draw the molasses. After 
being gone some time, Jacob called up from the cellar to 
Joseph and said that the jug did not hold a gallon. "Call 
Isaac," replied Hoover, "and let him try ; he has always 
been able to get a gallon in that jug." 

For a number of years prior to the year 1883, Francis 
Hoover, who lived near the eastern extremity of the Wilkes- 
Barre Water Company's reservoir, where the road from 
Huntsville to Dallas passes around the same, claimed title 
to some land which also was claimed by a neighbor, Chris- 
topher Eypher. The dispute ended in an ejectment suit, 
which was finally decided in favor of Mr. Eypher by the 
poet-lawyer, David M. Jones, of Wilkes-Barre, to whom the 
case was referred. I quote from the newspaper account 
which was published at the time : 

"Eypher brought an action of ejectment against Hoover for some 
three acres of land in Dallas township, part of a larger tract of one 
hundred and three acres. The defendant filed the usual plea of "not 
guilty," thus disputing not only the plaintiff's alleged ownership of the 
title to the three acres, but also denying the usual primary averment 



138 DALLAS TOWNSPilP, PA. 

of the plaintiff in such cases that the defendant was in possession, as 
unless he were he could not be sued even though he had no title 
whatever. 

"A jury trial was waived and the case referred to Attorney D. M. 
Jones, our popular poet, who, after taking a large amount of testimony 
on both sides, and listening to the spirited arguments of counsel, filed 
a report in favor of the plaintiff. To this numerous exceptions were 
filed by defendant's counsel, and after lengthy argument on the excep- 
tions, the court, Judge Woodward, filed the following opinion : 

"Christopher Eypher j C. P. 

vs. \ 200 January Term, 1883. 

Francis Hoover. ] Report of Referee and exceptions. 

"This is an action of ejectment, and the 8th finding of fact by the 
Referee is as follows : 

" 'Eighth — That the title, legal and equitable, to said land is in Chris- 
topher Eypher, the plaintiff, and that he has been in possession and 
has occupied and improved said lot No. 6 since the 28th March, 1844, 
the disputed land being within the certified fines of said No. 6, and 
of lot No. 5 certified Bedford since the 6th of May, 1854 — that he has 
occupied and improved said lands under and by virtue of said con- 
veyance.' 

"Again, in what is called the 'history of the case,' on page 5, the 
Referee states that 'the plaintiff has been in possession of these lands 
for a little over forty years,' &c. 

"Now, ejectment is a possessory action, and the writ avers that the 
defendant is in possession, while the right of possession remains in 
the plaintiff who brings the suit. Certainly this is not established by 
showing that the plaintiff is actually in possession, and has been for 
forty years last past. The referee concludes his report by finding in 
favor of the plaintiff for the land described in the writ. We are utterly 
at a loss to understand how a judgment in ejectment can be either 
entered or enforced in favor of a party shown by the evidence to have 
been in actual and peaceful possession, not only at the time of bring- 
ing the suit, but for forty years previous thereto. 

"Apprehending, however, that we may possibly not rightly under- 
stand the meaning of the referee, we refer the case back to him, with 
the remark, that if his statement of the facts is precisely what he in- 
tends, there would seem to be no cause of action. 

"Stanley Woodward, Judge." 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 1 39 

Later the referee filed a supplemental report on the re- 
reference, wherein he rebuts the inference of the plaintiff's 
possession from that part of his former report quoted in the 
opinion of the court, and again awards the disputed land to 
the plaintiff Accompanying his supplemental report the 
referee handed to Judge Woodward the following extra- 
judicial vindication of the true intent of the former finding: 

Luzerne Cou?ity, ss : 

Eypher "^ No. 200, January Term, 1883. 

vs. y Ejectment. 

Hoover. J Supplemental " History of the Case." 

They made me a Referee 

In a land case uncommonly long-winded, 
An ill wind that blew a good fee, 

Because for a/ee they contended. 

And I said to myself, my Report 

Is lucid, at least to my own mind; 
And when it goes up to the court, 

On the usual exceptions, tho' stone blmd, 

Dame Justice will see what I mean ; 

But wit, too, is blinding by flashes, 
And a stroke of it might intervene, 

Should she lay the law down on my dashes. 

And behold, in a finding of fact, 

The Judge found — bad luck to my dashes — 

The plaintiff possessed of the tract, 

And then follows his wit, with its flashes : 

"Possessed of the piece in dispute, 

(What more could a plaintiff desire ?), 
At the time he started the suit, 

And upwards of forty years prior." 

Did it take me ten days to find out, 

With a cursory sort of digression. 
What the whole blasted case was about, 

And who was in peaceful possession ? 



HO DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

There were acres one hundred and three — 
Perchance more — aUogether, were aching 

To get a small slice of the fee, 

And the title to three, it was taking. 

The plaintiff one hundred possessed / 

But his deeds called for three in addition ! 

He ought to be sorely distressed, 

But, dear Judge, I don't mean in perdition. 

I said what I meant, and I meant 

What I said, and I say, that I said it, 
It is not what I wrote I repent. 

But the cursory way that you read it. 

The defendant's attorney he took 

Two days my dull mind to enlighten. 
Oh ! the fists in my face that he shook, 

To inform me, you see, not to frighten. 

Now he claims that my report is sent back, 
That the case may again be gone over, 

How the sides of Old Laughter will crack. 
When that Bull gets again in the clover. 

But I think I can stand the attack. 

At ten dollars a day, till 'tis ended ; 
To go up again and come back 

On a teeter like that is just splendid. 

How fine to ascend and descend 

On that see-saw aforesaid a-straddle, 
With law points to boot at each end. 

And myself, as it were, in the saddle. 

Respectfully submitted, 

D. M. Jones. 
To the Honorable Stanley Woodward, Judge. 

THE TELEPHONE, RAILROAD AND OTHER ENTERPRISES. 

Up to the time of the War of i86i-'65 and for several 
years thereafter the only mail facilities at Dallas were via the 
route from Kingston to Bowman's Creek once a week. 
Within a few years after the war the mail was increased to 
twice a week, but it was not until the year 1873, under the 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. I4I 

administration of President Grant, that the mail receipts 
were increased to every day. Abram Ryman was post- 
master at that time. From this time on there was a stronp' 

o 

and growing feeling with a few inhabitants of Dallas in favor 
of a telegraph or some more rapid means of communicating 
with the outside world. The telegraph was impractical on 
account of the expense of hiring skilled operators. The 
problem was not solved until 1878, when the telephone was 
put on the market first as a practical invention. A few ex- 
perimental telephones had been seen at Wilkes-Barre, at- 
tached to telegraph lines, early in that year. They seemed 
to so fit the needs of Dallas and vicinity that immediate steps 
were taken to organize a company and build a line. The 
Wilkes-Barre and Harvey's Lake Telegraph Company was 
the name of the corporation then formed. It was incorpo- 
rated as a telegraph company because no laws had yet been 
formed to provide for incorporating telephone companies, 
and this was considered substantially near enough a system 
of telegraphing to warrant calling it such. The charter was 
received July 4th, 1878. The incorporators were H. S. 
Rutter, E. P. Darling, H. A. Moore, G. M. Lewis, C. A. 
Spencer, W. J. Honeywell, Joseph Shaver, T. F. Ryman, 
J. J. Ryman and W. P. Ryman. The line was constructed 
from Wilkes-Barre to Harvey's Lake, with an ofifice at the 
store of A. Ryman's Sons in Dallas village. The Harvey's 
Lake office was first at the cottage of H. S. Rutter, and the 
Wilkes-Barre office at the office of Ryman & Lewis, No. 
7 West Market street, where the present Anthracite Build- 
ing now stands [1886]. The line was completed and the 
instruments connected about 3 o'clock in the afternoon of 

the day of November, 1878. At about that time the 

writer rang the signal bell and got an answer from Dallas. 
The surprise and wonder were very great, and we could at 
first hardly realize that we were talking to each other nine 
miles away. This was the first regular telephone line con- 



142 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

structed in vicinity of Wilkes-Barre, and up to that time was 
the longest distance anyone in the vicinity of Wilkes-Barre 
had attempted to talk. The curiosity and incredulity of the 
people along the line about Dallas and Harvey's Lake, when 
told that machines were being put up by which one could 
talk at Harvey's Lake or Dallas and be heard at Wilkes- 
Barre, were very great. Some laughed at it as a joke and 
would not seriously consider the possibility of such a thing 
for a moment. Scores watched the work, however, with 
increasing attention and earnestness as it approached com- 
pletion. As the day and the hour of its completion drew 
near crowds began to assemble at the Harvey's Lake and 
Dallas offices until, I am told, they amounted to hundreds, 
who had assembled to have their predictions of failure be- 
lieved. When they were persuaded by hearing and recog- 
nizing the voice that the speaker was actually as far away as 
Wilkes-Barre, they began to try and explain the "how" and 
"why" of it. With most of them, as with the majority of 
mankind, it was incomprehensible ; but a few knowing ones 
at Dallas explained it easily enough, I am told, by an im- 
aginary discovery that the wire which had been strung 
upon the poles to Wilkes-Barre was hollow, and thus the 
voice was easily carried so far as through a tube. 

THE RAILROAD. 

To Albert S. Orr, more than to any other one person, is 
due the credit of starting and pushing the enterprise of the 
Wilkes-Barre and Harvey's Lake Railroad until it had to 
and did become a reality. For many years a short line 
from Wyoming Valley via Dallas to the New York state 
line had been talked of Once, about the year 1868, a sur- 
vey was made from Mehoopany down via Bowman's Creek, 
Kunkle, across "Chestnut Ridge" and through Dallas vil- 
lage, but this survey did not find a practical route on ac- 
count of steep grades and deep cuts. In the midsummer 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. I43 

of 1885 Mr. Orr called one warm afternoon at the law office 
of George W. Shonk, Esq., on Franklin street, in Wilkes- 
Barre, and began to talk about some valuable timber land 
and lumber interests belonging to John Shonk, the father 
of George, situate at Ruggles post-office, beyond Harvey's 
Lake. In the course of the conversation Orr asserted that 
he knew a feasible route for a railroad from Wyoming Val- 
ley to Harvey's Lake which could be built and equipped 
for a very small sum comparatively, say ^^ 100,000 to ^150,- 
000, which, when built, would not only enhance Mr. Shonk's 
lands, but all others along the line. This idea at first struck 
Mr. Shonk favorably, but when he began to think of its 
cost, compared with his bank account at that particular day, 
the notion became ridiculous to him, and he remarked to 
Mr. Orr that he could not talk about building a railroad, 
calling attention to his then small balance in bank. "That 
makes no difference," said Mr. Orr; "I have no more cash 
on hand than you have, but I will take ^5,000 in the road 
and will find some way to raise it. I want you to see your 
father to-night when you go home and talk it over with 
him." Mr. Shonk did as requested. Much to his surprise, 
his father was not only much interested, but agreed to take 
^25,000 of the stock and to get others to take some. Mr. 
Orr in the meantime called on Mr. Troxell, owner of a large 
body of land at Harvey's Lake, and Messrs. Ryman and 
Brothers and Joseph Shaver and others owning land at Dal- 
las, and from each got not only encouragement but agree- 
ment to take some of the stock. With this assurance Mr. Orr 
began at once to secure right of way, to have surveys made 
and to make application for the charter. Mr. Orr spent 
most of the balance of the year 1885 in getting the right of 
way, in which he was very successful, having secured a 
large portion without cost. Early in the spring of 1886, 
everything being in readiness, and the organization com- 
plete, the directors met and let the contract for grading to 



144 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

Mr. Orr. Hardly was the ink dry on his contract before 
one bright morning, May 30, 1886, Mr. Orr was at work 
with about one hundred Hungarians grading this road as 
it now h'es, beginning at a point near the old White mill- 
dam in Luzerne borough. Mr. Orr continued his work 
with unabated zeal for nearly a month, when the Lehigh 
Valley Railroad, through Mr. Albert Lewis, seeing the ad- 
vantage of this road and its importance to a larger system, 
began negotiations, and within a few days purchased the 
franchise and all rights of the new company and proceeded 
to finish it. In this way the road was built much better and 
more substantially than it probably would otherwise have 
been. The work was not pushed rapidly, but was done 
well, and on Thursday, December 9th, 1886, the first loco- 
motive passed through the village of Dallas. The road was 
not open for general business and travel, however, for sev- 
eral months later. Under the management of the Lehigh 
Valley this railroad prospered far beyond expectation. The 
lumber and passenger traffic grew rapidly and soon attracted 
attention. 

Within ten years from the beginning of the first railroad 
there began to be talk of a second, this time an electric 
road, intended more especially to catch the passenger busi- 
ness between Wilkes-Barre, Dallas and Harvey's Lake. As 
early as the year 1893 John B. Reynolds of Kingston, the 
leading spirit of the new enterprise, began discussing the 
subject with his friends. Nor did he stop with mere dis- 
cussion. One after another of his plans were perfected, his 
company organized and work was begun. 

In the year 1896 he had partly graded his line through 
the mountain gorge between Luzerne and Trucksville, when 
he came upon a landowner who refused to give or sell the 
right to cross his land at any price. This suspended the 
work for a short time only. Mr. Reynolds soon took 
out a new charter under the general railroad law of Penn- 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 145 

sylvania for a new steam railroad under the name of the 
Wilkes-Barre and Northern Railroad, which gave him also 
the right of. eminent domain, and thus broke down all ob- 
stacles put in the way by landowners. From this time for- 
ward the new road progressed rapidly, so that almost ex- 
actly within ten years from the entry of the first locomotive 
into the village of Dallas in December, 1886, the first loco- 
motive on the new road made its first entry into the village 
of Dallas. The road is at this writing being extended to 
Harvey's Lake, and it is expected before long to be con- 
nected with the electric trolley system at Wilkes-Barre, so 
that one can ride in the electric cars from Public Square in 
Wilkes-Barre to Harvey's Lake without change. 

While ever mindful of the needs and comforts of the liv- 
ing, Dallas was not forgetful of the dead. About the year 
1883 the subject of a new and better arranged cemetery was 
brought before the people, which soon culminated, Novem- 
ber I2th, 1883, in the incorporation of the Dallas Cemetery 
Association, which immediately secured and laid out the 
cemetery ground as it now is in the village of Dallas. To 
this cemetery many remains were removed from different 
burying-grounds in the vicinity. The incorporators of this 
association were as follows : Chester White, Perry Frantz, 
William A. Garringer, William C. Roushy, O. L. Fisher, 
Dr. C. A. Spencer, and John J. Ryman, all of Dallas. 

The lumbering industry in Dallas as early as 1885 was 
practically at an end except with two or three owners of 
mills who still bought a few scattering logs in winter and 
sawed them up as needed, and almost everyone else turned 
his attention to farming and stock raising. A very decided 
improvement in the appearance of the farms and of the stock 
of all kinds appeared about this time. With this pride in 
improved farms and farm products grew a desire to exhibit 



146 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

and compare notes. The outcome of this desire was the 
incorporation, July 9, 1885, of the Dallas Union Agricul- 
tural Association, which now owns a valuable property, 
where it holds annual fairs, and continues to prosper. The 
original organizers of this association were as follows : Wil- 
ham J. Honeywell, Philip T. Raub, James Monaghan, C. A. 
Spencer, Chester White, C. D. Honeywell, Ira D. Shaver, 
A. D. Hay, Leonard Machell and Jacob Rice. 

On the 30th of July, 1889, the Dallas Broom Company 
was incorporated. It purchased the old Methodist Episco- 
pal Church and grounds, raised the building high enough 
to build another story under it, and divided the old main 
room into two stories, so as to make a new three story 
building, into which was placed new and improved machin- 
ery, and the first brooms were made there about October 1st, 
1889. The business was conducted under the same man- 
agement until the year 1895, when it was consolidated with 
several other companies in the Eastern and Middle States 
under the name of The American Broom and Brush Com- 
pany. The original stockholders were as follows : William 
K. Goss, Isaac N. Shaver, John J. Ryman, P. T. Raub, 
Charles H. Cook, F. W. Tyrrell, Jacob Rice, Ira D. Sha- 
ver, Hay & Honeywell, John F. Garrahan, Dwight Wol- 
cott, Dan Perry, E. H. Elston, James G. Laing, John T. 
Phillips, G. M. Metzgar, A. S. Orr, S. D. Goff, William P. 
Kirkendall, C. A. Spencer, Gregory & Hitzman, G. W. 
Brickell, Chester White, Kirkendall & Bros., A. L. Wall, 
Jesse Albertson, P. N. Warden, George Puterbaugh, Wil- 
liam J. Honeywell and William P. Ryman. 

Dallas had now reached the period of its career when a 
newspaper was necessary to chronicle its happenings. In 
the year 1889 Mr. A. A. Holbrook started The Dallas Post, 
with the motto, "There is nothing too good for Dallas." 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 147 

This paper has been published continuously each week 
since. In the year 1895 Mr. Holbrook was succeeded by 
Mr. W. H. Capwell as editor and proprietor. 

Nothing was "too good for Dallas." Good water it had 
in wells and springs ; but with modern ideas of household 
comforts, hot and cold running water, and the bath room, as 
well as the sanitary principles involved, demanded that wa- 
terworks be established and pure water be brought to the 
houses from some point far away from any contamination of 
drainage from houses and cesspools. The plan was soon put 
in effect by the incorporation of the Dallas Water Company, 
August 2ist, 1893, with the following stockholders: John 
T. Phillips, J. J. Ryman, A. A. Holbrook of Dallas, G. L. 
Halsey of White Haven, Pa., Sheldon Reynolds of Wilkes- 
Barre, and John B. Reynolds of Kingston, Pa. 

This water company secured the water from some large 
springs on the old Edward McCarty farm, about two miles 
north of the village, and has a supply, sufficient for present 
needs, of most excellent water. This water was turned into 
the new pipes on Thanksgiving Day, 1893. The question 
of a water supply when Dallas has grown to five or six 
times its present size may not be easily solved. 

The following residents within the borough of Dallas 
were signers of the petition for the borough which was pre- 
sented to the court January 4th, 1879, ^i^ : 

Barney Stroud, J. J. Ryman, Theodore F. Ryman, Leon- 
ard Machell, Jacob Rice, Ira D. Shaver, J. B. Williamson, 
William Randall, George W. Shotwell, Lewis Starmer, Wil- 
liam H. Rice, William H. Law, Alexander Snyder, George 
Randall, B. W. Brickie, Joseph Atherholt, J. A. Folkerson, 
James G. Laing, Isaac N. Shaver, Elmer B. Shaver, Joseph 
Shaver, Fayette Allen, Fayette Shaver, John T. Fuller, John 
J. Bulford, O. F. Roushey, S. Rumage, Spencer Worden, S. 



148 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

B. Perrigo, William J. Honeywell, C. A. Spencer, Philip 
Raub, Thomas Garrahan, Thomas E. Oakley, Chester 
White, Peter Santee, William Snyder, Andrew Raub, L. M. 
Rice, Andrew J. Williamson, William P. Shaver, P. Perrigo, 
Charles H. Cooke, C. E. Raub, J. W. Johnson, C. D. Hen- 
derson, C. D. Fulkerson, G. W. Wilcox, J. S. Henderson, 
J. H. Gerhardt, Dwight Wolcott, William Randall, Frank- 
lin Bulford, S. H. Welsh, James Garrahan, E. Hunter, 
Christopher Snyder. 

This petition was also presented to the Grand Jury on the 
4th day of January, 1879. On the same day the Grand 
Jury reported favorably to granting the borough, Wesley 
Johnson, foreman. April 21st, 1879, after argument of the 
exceptions filed, the court confirmed the finding of the Grand 
Jury and decree that the town of Dallas be incorporated 
into a borough as prayed for, and that the corporate style 
and title thereof be '^The Borough of Dallas!' Borough 
bounded and described as follows : Beginning at a corner, 
a pile of stones and a corner to lands of Seth Rummage and 
Barney Stroud and in the division line of Dallas and Leh- 
man townships ; thence along the said division north, 30 
degrees west, along lands of Barney Stroud, Smith Perrigo 
and Thomas Parks, 500 perches to a stone corner on said 
Dallas and Lehman township line ; thence along lands of 
Thomas Parks and William Husted north, 58 degrees and 
55 minutes east, 100 perches to a hemlock stump on west 
side of the road leading from James Henderson's to Mrs, 
Oliver's; thence north, 30 degrees west, 13 perches to a 
post and corner to lands of William Snyder and Mrs. Oli- 
ver ; thence north, 58 degrees and 55 minutes east, 138 
perches along lands of Mrs. Oliver and William Snyder to 
a corner in Joseph Atherholt's line ; thence along said Jo- 
seph Atherholt's land north, 30 degrees west, 75 perches to 
land of John Hay; thence along said John Hay north, 35 
degrees and 55 minutes east, 75 perches to a corner of Levi 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 1 49 

Reed's land ; thence along land of the said Levi Reed and 
Perry and George Worden, south, 30 degrees east, 264 
perches to a corner on Centre Hill and in line of Leonard 
Machell's land ; thence along land of said Leonard Machell 
and Wordens, north, 58 degrees 55 minutes east, i86y'^ 
perches to Maria Kirkendall's corner and in line of lands of 
William K. and Mary Goss ; thence along the line of lands 
of the said William K. and Mary Goss and Maria Kirken- 
dall, south, 30 degrees east, 6^ perches to a small maple ; 
thence by land of the same south, 19 degrees west, I3x% 
perches to a post ; thence by the same south, 30 degrees east, 
12 perches to a locust tree; thence north, 42 degrees east, 
6 perches to a post and a corner in line of lands of William 
K. Goss and John Bulford ; thence along their line north, 
76 degrees east, 3 1 perches to another corner of said Goss 
and Bulford's land ; thence south, 30 degrees east, along 
land of said William K. Goss and John Bulford and Jacob 
Rice, I27y^^ perches to a corner of lands of William K. and 
Mary Goss and James B. Williamson's lands ; thence north, 
60 degrees east, along lands of said Goss and Williamson, 
54 perches to a corner in line of lands of Daniel Heft ; thence 
along line of lands of said Heft and Williamson, south, 30 
degrees east, 81 ^^ perches to a corner of said Heft's land 
in the line of Ryman and Shaver's land ; thence north, 60 
degrees east, 10 rods to a stone; thence by Ryman and 
Shaver's lands, south, 30 degrees east, 57 perches to a 
hemlock tree by the same south, 60 degrees west, 10 
perches to a post; thence by same south, 37 degrees east, 
37^2 perches to a rock; thence by land of Asa B. Shaver, 
south, 60 degrees west, 54 perches to a post in line of lands 
belonging to Joseph M. Shaw ; thence along his land north, 
30 degrees west, 62 perches to a corner of land of Elmer B. 
Shaver in centre of the road (Dallas to Kingston) ; thence 
along the road north, 49^ degrees west, 25^ perches to a 
corner of Adison Church's land ; thence by same south, 31 j4 



150 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

degrees west, 26 perches to a corner of land of Norton and 
Holly ; thence south, 60 degrees west, by said Norton and 
Holly's land, 75 perches to a birch tree and corner of lands of 
Jacob Rice and John N. Welch ; thence along the land the 
same course 53 perches to a corner of Rice's land; thence 
north, 49^ degrees west, 53^ perches to Ryman's corner ; 
105^ perches to another corner of said Ryman's in line of 
William B. Steckels ; thence along said Steckel's land, south, 
30 degrees east, loj^ perches to a corner of lands of Chris- 
tian Eypher ; thence along said Eypher's land, south, 60 
degrees west, io8y^^ perches to another corner of said 
Eypher's land ; thence south, 30 degrees east, 45 perches 
to stones corner of Fanny Hoover's land ; thence south, 60 
degrees east, 45 perches to corner of land of Seth Rum- 
mage ; thence along his land north, 30 degrees west, 39^ 
perches to the centre of the road leading from Huntsville 
to Dallas Village ; thence a northeast course along said road 
to William B. Steckel's corner ; thence along said William 
B. Steckel's land, north, 30 degrees west, yS^-^ perches to 
a post, another corner of said Seth Rummage ; thence by 
his land south, 60 degrees west, 34y% perches to the road 
and a corner of lands of Barney Stroud and said Rummage; 
thence along the road leading from said Stroud's to said 
Rummage's dwelling, south, 18 degrees east, 10 perches; 
south, 3 degrees east, 13 perches; south, 23 degrees east, 
21 perches to a chestnut ; thence along the same road south, 
30 degrees east, 40 perches to a corner of Stroud's land ; 
thence south, 60 degrees west, along line of lands of said 
Stroud and Rummage, 100 perches to a stone corner, the 
place of beginning. 

Report of Grand Jury January 4, 1879, Wesley Johnson, 
foreman. 

Same day court orders certificate to be entered of record. 
April 21, 1879, court confirms the judgment of the Grand 
Jury and decree that the town of Dallas be incorporated 



DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. I5I 

into borough as prayed for, and ''that the corporate style and 
title thereof shall be The Borough of Dallas." 

Court also directs that the annual borough election shall 
be held at the hotel of Andrew Raub in said borough on 
the third Tuesday of February ; also declared and decreed 
that said borough should be a separate school district. 
Court also directed that the election of officers for said bor- 
ough for first year be held at said Raub's hotel. May 13, 
1879, between 7 A. m. and 7 p. m., and designated William 
J. Reiley to give due notice of said election. Barney Stroud 
also same day appointed to be judge, and William Snyder 
and John Ferguson appointed to be the inspectors, and 
William H. Rice and D. Wolcott to be clerks of said elec- 
tion. 

Map recorded Charter Book No i, page 364. 

High School Association of Dallas. — Petition and charter 
1868. Charter members: Leonard Machell, Dallas, 40 
shares; James Garrahan, Dallas, 10 shares; Ira D. Shaver, 
Dallas, 10 shares ; William J. Honeywell, Dallas, 20 shares ; 
Theodore F. and J. J. Ryman, Dallas, 20 shares ; Chester 
White, Dallas, 10 shares ; Joseph Atherholt, Dallas, 5 
shares ; William Snyder, Dallas, 10 shares ; Joseph Shaver, 
Dallas, 20 shares ; Jacob Rice, Dallas, 20 shares ; James G. 
Laing, Dallas, 5 shares ; C. A. Spencer, Dallas, 5 shares ; 
A. Raub, Dallas, 10 shares ; George W. Kirkendall, Wilkes- 
Barre, 10 shares; William P. Kirkendall, Wilkes-Barre, 5 
shares. Charter Book i, page 318. 

The Methodist Church of Dallas did not become an in- 
corporated body until its charter was granted by the courts 
November 26, 1866. It is recorded in Luzerne county Re- 
corder's office. Charter Book 2, page 474. 

This charter was revised and amended to conform to the 
new incorporation laws of Pennsylvania, by amendment 



152 DALLAS TOWNSHIP, PA. 

dated March 23, 1889, and recorded in Charter Book 2, page 
500. The trustees named in the new charter were : WiUiam J. 
Honeywell, Dwight Wolcott, John T. Phillips, W. P. Kir- 
kendall, Jacob Rice, Frank W. Tyrrel, William C. Roushey, 
John J. Ryman. 

Dallas Union Agricultural Association. — Charter July 6, 
1885. Charter members: William J. Honeywell, Dallas, 
10 shares; Philip T. Raub, Dallas, 10 shares; James Mon- 
igan, Trucksville, 10 shares ; C. A. Spencer, Dallas, 10 
shares; Chester White, Dallas, 10 shares; C. D.Honey- 
well, Dallas, 10 shares ; Ira D. Shaver, Dallas, 10 shares ; 
A. D. Hay, Dallas, 10 shares ; Leonard Machell, Dallas, 10 
shares; Jacob Rice, Dallas, 10 shares. 

Dallas Cemetery Association. — Charter Book No. 2, page 
26. Incorporated November 12, 1883. Chester White, 7 
shares ; Perry Frantz, 7 shares ; William A. Garringer, 7 
shares ; William C. Roushey, 7 shares ; O. L. Fisher, 7 
shares ; Dr. C. A, Spencer, 7 shares ; John J. Ryman, 8 
shares — all of Dallas. 



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